Up a ladder

He Who Can Fix Anything is known among his friends as McGyver, for obvious reasons. He's been restoring the windows and window frames in our wooden house by the sea, which over the last 30 years or so has taken a tremendous beating from the sea air, winter storms and blazing sun in summer. He started off with a long ladder (the windows are all on the first floor) and spent hours at a time perched precariously as the top of this without any way of actually anchoring himself to the building. But with him, it is either the whole hog or nothing, and each piece of glass was removed, the beadings broken out and everything sanded down to the bare wood. Ably assisted by Appie #1 (me) and sometimes Appie #2 (K).

Weekend after fun-filled weekend has gone by while we have painted, puttied and varnished, cleaned windows with thinners and chipped off resistant old paint with our bare nails. All the while, McGyver has balanced on the outside, looking in. And the more I insisted he was going overboard and that no-one was ever going to see that a top storey window frame had a tiny spot of white paint on the varnish, the more determined he became to do it his way or no way. The result is windows that look as though they have just been newly installed in an old house. He assures me that the rest of the outer walls will soon be matching, and I have no doubt that, when it is eventually done, he will be right and the house will be good for another 30 years.

By that time, our ladder-climbing days will be long over, and we may even be living in Shady Pines retirement home, if they will have us! So he is banking on never having to climb the ladder again when it's done. His McGyver skills came to the fore when the ladder was unsuitable for the situation of the window and he built a scaffold between the steps and the house, nailing planks and clamping a platform into place in a matter of moments. The windows were taken out and only replaced the next day, leaving easy access for any would-be criminal straight from the front door into the office area and the computer. But as I refuse to allow that kind of activity on my property, I slept easy that night and even the wind and rain stayed away, just to make sure all was well!

It will be a sad day when he is too old to fix things, as there is no doubt that nobody else can do it as well as he does, but it will definitely cut down on the swearing!