Astany Portorm (3, 4, 2, 1, 5)

When I got back here on Tuesday, everything was fine.  I worry occasionally and slightly – has the house burned down? (unlikely, I’d have been told); has the boiler broken down (that’s happened); has a power cut switched off the alarm and then failed to switch it back on again (nightmare scenario) ….

No, all was fine.  So I went up the supermarket to stock up for the few days I’d be here.  Also fine.  But.

When I got back, I opened the front door (as one does) then closed it.  Except that the latch pushy-in-and-out thingy didn’t push out.  I have, of course, two locks on this door, so as it wasn’t an immediately urgent problem – not up there with the alarm – I investigated briefly, determined that the lock was knackered beyond repair, and got on with what was left of the day.

Wednesday was spent finding a replacement lock that near enough matched the dead one.  I ended up at Reading’s wonderful long-lived ironmongers, Drews, where a cheerfully caring young man helped me find what I needed, leaving me with what proved to be a presciently potent parting platitude – ‘hope it goes all right!’

Don’t worry, I shall now cut to the title.  After, at about 3 o’clock when the light was starting to fail, discovering that the pre-existing hole in the door was too big (the spindly thingy that connects the outside to the inside has to be precisely aligned, which the right-sized hole will achieve automatically whereas a too-big one permits the thingy to wobble around, making it really hard to join it all up, and… where was I?), I gave up and moved on.

Of course, this morning, after a good night’s sleep (apart from the wind – not internal, there was a serious storm going on outside) I dealt with that now minor impediment in minutes flat (well, about twenty of them) and completed the installation.

This is where I found that I needed to shim out the thingy that’s attached to the door frame, which catches the lock’s pushy-in-and-out thingy and causes the lock to, erm, lock, by about a quarter of an inch.  I needed a little bit of wood just that thick.  But where to find such a thing?  The idea of having to haul down to yet another diy joint was not on.  It had to be locally sourced.  Another twenty minutes head scratching and wandering around ensued, then the solution caught my eye.

About thirty years ago, it seems that some kind body gave us a presentation bottle of Dow’s Vintage Port.  The box it came in now contains old forks, parties for the use of.  It was in the garage/workshop/study.  Ah, maybe…!  Yes, its lid is exactly the right thickness and width (3”) for the shim I needed.  All I had to do was saw off the right length and drill three holes in it.  The forks aren’t quite as well protected as they were, but they’ll survive.

As the post title says – ‘Any Port In A Storm’.