Light, glorious light

Having successfully drilled through the bedroom ceiling into the loft, we now found that the shank of the hook was too long. It would have been a simple matter to find a piece of timber of the right thickness, drill a hole through it, and then pass the shank up through the ceiling and then through the timber. But this was Les Lavandes, and that would have been too easy. The length of the wires coming up from the light fitting meant that the connections would have to be just where the timber block would lie. We would need to build a bridge, with the connections underneath it.

After we have screwed three pieces of wood together to make the bridge, I climbed the steps and held the light fitting in place, for all the world like a rustic Statue of Liberty. Using a piece of thin wire as a hook, either Chris or Alan fished through the hole to pull the leads up into the floor space. This proved to be quite a tricky job. After ten minutes or so my right arm felt as though all the blood had flowed out and it was becoming distinctly numb. I had to change hands. This meant relinquishing my hold on the step ladder. As I reached up to take hold of the light in my left hand, the steps wobbled. Luckily the light fitting was made of wood and it landed on me when I hit the floor, so nothing was broken.

I replaced the steps and held up the light fitting again. This time Chris managed to hook to wires quite quickly, but the ends were so short that it was another half an hour before we could push the shank of the hook through the bridge and tighten the nut, by which time I was in agony. But we did now have a light in the upstairs bedroom.