Every year at this kind of time, I find myself getting fidgety for change! It must be the sun coming out and giving me extra energy, but Sean’s face drops when he sees me wandering around with the tape measure in my hand! Over the years, it has resulted in some very amusing moments.

Several times it has meant me deciding the furniture needs to be moved. I know how much Sean hates doing this, and so I started just doing it myself! One particular time, I decided that we needed bunk beds for our boys. So we’d ordered them together, and they’d arrived while Sean was at work. I looked at the instructions and saw that it said it needed two men to put them together. Well, that was a challenge! I may be one not very tall woman, but I could do it on my own! Cue hours of fiddling with alan keys!

This particular set of bunk beds had an upright piece for each end and then the bases for the mattress screwed into that. So with balancing the bottom bunk on some books and cushions, and leaning the ends against the wall at one end and holding the other end. I somehow managed to get it screwed in place! Then it came to the top bunk.

The mattress base was going to be at about my chest height. Part of me thought I should wait until Sean got home and get him to help me, but a greater part of me thought, no, I won’t be defeated! So I got the mattresses, put them on their sides on the base and lifted the top bunk into place. It wasn’t particularly secure but once I’d got the first screw in place I was happy! So, finally, the worst was over and I just had to attach the bumper bar to stop Tom falling out of the top bunk.

The only problem was the holes for this seemed to have disappeared. By this time, I was exhausted and so I thought it might be time to give up. But then I realised that I’d put the top on the bottom and the bottom on the top! I needed to start all over again! I had a mini tantrum! But I’d come so far, I couldn’t give up now. I checked on my little two, they were happily playing in Abbie’s room and so I carried on!

I took the whole thing apart and started again. By the time I used the mattresses back in place to put the top bunk on I was completely exhausted. But I made the beds up anyway. I finally finished in time for the school run.

Sean came home from work ready to put the bunk beds together and couldn’t believe it when I opened the bedroom door with a ‘Ta-da’! He rolled his eyes so hard I’m surprised they didn’t disappear entirely!

I think it was a relief really. At least it wasn’t a half finished job like the time I started to break up the concrete in the garden because I decided I wanted grass. That resulted in Sean spending a whole spring breaking up the garden, digging out stones and then laying top soil. Or the time I had measured all the furniture and moved our room around, only to realise, when I was almost done, that I hadn’t accounted for the lip at the top of our wardrobe! That time he had to get a saw out and cut off the protruding edge! Or the time I decided I could move the whole climbing frame to another part of the garden without even measuring. He watched as the whole thing rolled down the hill crashing bushes and plants in the process!

This year, Sean’s gotten away lightly. I’ve just been scouting for a double oven and have moved things around in the kitchen! But, I’ve got plans, and you never know when he might come home to some ridiculous scheme I’ve either finished or made a start on!