12th January. One Blue Hand.

One hassle inevitably led to another, and before the afternoon was over I had the ex-SAS man's toilet in bits.

"Not flushing properly", apparently. After various trips to the plumbing aisles of B&Q for spare parts, nothing fitted together because toilets are a bit like mobile phones; they keep changing the design. The short answer, as for many other sanitary problems is a generous application of silicon rubber.

The experience has left an inedelible mark in the form of one blue hand. This is because the ex-SAS man, rather than availing himself of the loo brush provided, prefers the dropping of the mysterious blue cube into the toilet cistern method of toilet hygiene.

These cubes, once part dissolved, colour the toilet water bright blue and anything else they come into direct contact with.