A rude awakening (again)

The earthquake the other day wasn't the first day we'd woken up with a bump recently. With it being winter here, we don't get up as early as we do in the summer. Claire usually gets up at 7-ish, and I usually slope out of the bedroom, Kraken-like, after 8:30, and usually before *cough* 10.

Just before Christmas though, we had a sudden change of routine. We were both rudely awakened at about 6:45....when my side of the bed suddenly collapsed!

[You can insert your own joke about too many mince pies in the run-up to Xmas here]

Now, I'm not the handiest person around the house, but I was determined that with that much wood, still mostly in the shape of a bed in the room, I could surely repair it, rather than have to buy a whole new bed.

So that morning I carefully measured what I needed, and then headed down to a hardware shop in town. The lady running it didn't speak any English which made things tricky, but once I'd carefully picked my eight nails, she let me have them for nothing.

I proudly took them home, only to discover that they were too long. You can see how good my DIY skills are - I couldn't even get the right size of nails at the first attempt!

Anyway, after a couple of nights sleeping on the futon in the spare room, I replaced the nails with some slightly shorter ones. This time she charged me a whole €0.10 for them - the outrage!

Thanks to my "skills" with the hammer, we have a working bed again. I'm not entirely sure I trust my handiwork it to hold together for long, mind you...