Finally, after much grout, drilling, tears and extortionate bank holiday call-out charges for emergency plumbing, I have a renovated bathroom.

On Sunday I was in Stow-on-the-Wold, celebrating my parents’ ruby wedding anniversary with the extended family (don’t ask me why, as none of our family have any links with Stow-on-the-Wold, nor do any of them know what a “Wold” is, and nor do any of them live within 75 miles of the place) when I got a text from my downstairs neighbour, telling me that water was coming through her ceiling – and not only that, it was going through her floor and into the ceiling of the flat below. Fortunately there were no flats on any lower levels whose decor would be blighted by my leaky pipework, but the woman at the bottom of the block collected a full bucket of water in a few short hours. Ouch. How are you supposed to enjoy a ruby wedding anniversary under such circumstances? I quickly abandoned the speech I had planned to make, which was to mask the raw emotion of the occasion with cutting-edge humour, something like –

My mother, Pamela, and my father, David, met when they were competing in a Jewish mixed amateur golf tournament in Southampton, way back in 1964. Playing off the same 8 handicap, they found themselves locked in a battle for 9th place after my father double bogeyed the 16th, and my mother rallied impressively throughout the back nine. To this day, neither of them will admit who finally came out ahead – but one thing was certain: something special had begun; if not love at first sight, then certainly a grudging mutual respect.

– and I rang a plumber.

One of the last acts committed by our Iranian builder before leaving the premises was to drop a heavy shower rail into the bath and thus take a huge chip out of it. When we casually confronted him with the evidence, he denied that it was him, despite the fact that we’d clearly heard an almighty crash followed by loud exclamations in Persian. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe the magic wrought by this product; we used it yesterday and you can’t even tell where the chip used to be. Consider this a recommendation, although I wouldn’t recommend gouging a chunk out of your bath purely in order to try it.

I may stop going on about bathrooms, presently.