Secret Spy Torch

Visited Leaf yesterday in Little Big Smoke. She said, "Bring your electric drill and plumbing tools". I think it's because she doesn't see me that often these days and feels the need to squeeze every last little drop of usefulness out of me.

So the visit to a nice tea shop was exchanged for a traffic laden trip to the DIY store to exchange bulbs and wall fittings she'd bought, which although pretty, were unfortunately completely unsuited for their purpose.

She dangled the promise of a pizza in return for hanging two large wall mirrors and refitting a radiator - Leaf had had a terminal disagreement with her Plumber half way through his work, you see.

The challenge of these little jobs is that Leaf likes to help. Keeping her gainfully occupied while trying to carefully align a water pipe can be tricky but its generally preferable to having an ice cube pinged up my trouser leg or having my scalp examined for imagined infestations.

There was one very interesting little job though. She recently had some of those small ceiling lights fitted in the bathroom - the kind that fit flush with the surface and don't protrude. Unfortunately her Plasterer had short circuited them with his wet gypsum, blowing the bulbs in the process. Replacement means pulling out the unit and disengaging each bulb from its dangling electricity supply wire. It seems either the Plasterer or Leaf - though she denies all involvement - had pushed one of the dangling wires inside the ceiling void and now it was nowhere to be seen.

The holes for these lights are about four inches in diameter so there's hardly enough room to poke your nose in, let alone see up into the dark recesses between the ceiling and the floorboards of the flat above. I tried exploring but could only squeeze three fingers and a pinky through the gap at one time.

This was clearly a job for my secret spy torch - a small reading light with an LED bulb mounted on a thin stem connected to a clip at the other end - the kind that attaches to the side of a book so you can read on a dark bus or train. The kind you buy from one of those revolving wire displays in airport accessory shops.

Anyway, it was perfect for poking up into the hole in the ceiling. I felt like a spy, sneakily poking a miniature camera on a stick through the air conditioning grill at the office of the Kremlin's KGB chief, as he signed his approval for the latest assassination method - ingestion by deadly radioactive toast.

While pressing my cheek and nose to the ceiling - a convoluted exercise involving a ladder and some gymnastics - I poked the torch into the dark void and could just see the loose end of the electric feed wire about a foot in. Luckily, Leaf had a flexible draft excluding strip - the kind that goes round a door frame to stop wintry chills - that could be shaped into a flexible hook. After five minutes of fiddling and getting quite personal with some only recently dried plaster, I hooked the wire and pulled it back out. Voila!

A complex job that would likely have been beyond the capability of your average brain surgeon, completed successfully.

Leaf was over the moon. All her lights now worked and the bathroom was warm again. This meant lots of cuddles for me and the promised pizza, yipee!

Not such a bad night after all.

Listening to: conversations in an Internet Café
Feeling: rushed, sorry I've not had time to reply to comments yet.