That time of year

Up and down the UK, scores of households eagerly await the emergence from hibernation of the Power Tool. In sheds, garages and under-stairs cupboards, electric drills, jigsaws and sanders awake from months of dormancy. The patient observer might even catch sight of the lesser-spotted Router (so named because it is not seen that often, belonging to the genus impulse-buy. It is distantly related to the electric sandwich-maker, corn-on-the-cob skewers and the fondue set).

The reason for the excitement is the annual DIY ritual. This is a process whereby perfectly good houses are knocked about - walls taken out, walls put in, last year’s bathroom replaced by this year’s – in order to empty the shelves of DIY super-stores.

This event used to take place around Easter; it was as timeless and predictable as the Black Stork crossing the Bosphorus or the Snow Goose on its way North for the summer. But of late, perhaps due to perturbations in our weather systems from Climate Change, the need to take apart and reassemble seems spread across the entire calendar.

This need – and it is a need – is deep-seated within the human psyche. It is no coincidence that many power tools look like weapons – indeed in the wrong hands they can become weapons of mass destruction. We wear them slung round our waists in tool holsters. The more reckless of the breed has set him/herself free from the umbilical of the power lead and gone cordless.

Anniemay and I are not immune from all this; we have poured excitedly over paint cards, sanitary-ware catalogues and recharged our electric drill batteries in anticipation of the en-suite makeover.

This isolating valve signifies that our shower room has ceased to be. It is now an empty room full of capped-off pipe work. Devoid of meaning, it sits waiting patiently for reconnection to the hot and cold water systems, thereby restoring the cosmic balance and enabling us once more to become cleansed.