pumpkinstrokemarrow

Last summer (July 7th) saw what these days is for me a fairly major bit of DIY in the form of two trestle tables. Yesterday saw the DIY bug bite again, but only in a very modest way.

A year or so ago, our garage lock was getting a bit sticky so I invested in a new padlock from Sterling (http://www.sterlinglocks.com/) at a shop in Garratt Lane. This, despite being described as weatherproof in their catalogue (see WPL149), has now succumbed to the weather and had become a real pain to open in the morning. Much fiddling around with key, hot water & three-in-one oil and with the situation not much improved by wrapping the lock up with a cloth blanket in a plastic bag.

So off to Travis Perkins down Longmead Road to see what they could do and for £11 we have a shiny new padlock from Squire - a firm with whom I have had more to do than with Sterling - graded 4 or 5 out of 12 by the home security police. I note in passing that the general shape of their keys has not changed over the years although the end you hold is now plastic clad rather than bare metal. Presumably plastic cladding is cheaper than metal.

Given the short life span of the Sterling lock, I decided it would be best if the lock was provided with a shelter, to keep the worst of the weather off if not the cold. Various options sprang to mind but eventually decided that a plastic flap over the lock was the thing. And so, a couple of hours later we have the fine flap illustrated, the flapping bit being cut from a bit of surplus oil cloth - this being my name for stuff which appears to be woven but which is faced with plastic. We can now sit indoors in the warm worrying about how long it will take the sun to rot the plastic; hopefully not before we have sourced something a bit more substantial. Perhaps a bit of black rubber sheeting? Would that look a bit gross against the black of the white door? But I nipped out for long enough today to put some Dulux Weathershield Gloss on top of the undercoat of the same name, illustrated. In my experience, very good stuff.

All of which has reminded me that working with your hands out of doors at this time of year is not much fun. All frozen and fumble.