The Home Improvement Show

It’s been a busy week but somehow I found the time to turn forty. I’d known this was going to happen on March 17th 2010 for some time but it still came as quite a shock. After working through Thursday night on a report and having ninety minutes sleep on Friday afternoon we went to see the thoroughly brilliant Dave Gorman. I saw a client this morning and then met Marianna at the NEC for the Home Improvement Show. You may wonder why we went and lesser people than you and I might struggle to see how it was different from the Grand Designs show we visited last year. It’s just that that’s what we do. We talk about windows and doors, bathrooms, types of tile, types of insulation, types of radiator, showers, our neighbour’s guttering, RSJ’s, the colour of kitchen units etc etc and then we go to these shows to talk about these things with other people. Doesn’t everyone? When I arrived at about 12.15 Marianna had already been there since the doors opened at ten but we managed to stay until after three. The first task for me, having risen early and missed an entire night’s sleep in the last three days, was to visit the canteen and re-energise myself with something involving pasta and spinach that looked like road kill. Then we explored the half of the exhibition that Marianna had thus far neglected. I think we more focused than at the Grand Designs show and largely sought to finally answer what we want our doors and window frames made from, what design of radiator we’d like and how we’d like to insulate the house. A man spoke to us at length about a type of insulation that is pumped into the walls. It was only at the end that he revealed that these would be false walls built onto our existing internal walls, thus shrinking the rooms. I think not. Martin is already trying to shrink my garage. I’m all for a well insulated house but God invented pullovers so I wouldn’t have to tolerate such nonsense as having false walls just for a little extra insulation. Some of those attending must have a different budget to me unless the people selling the £3000 garage door and the bath with the television that rises from the tap end made no sales at all. Marianna had clearly made an impression in the morning since every exhibitor that we spoke to that she had seen earlier in the day greeted her like an old friend before re-enacting their earlier conversation for my benefit. This exhibition lacked the genuine celebrities that Grand Designs had. It was Dancing on Ice compared to the Strictly Come Dancing of Grand Designs Live. When the lack of sleep was really getting the better of me we left and I went home for a late afternoon nap. That’s what people in their forties do.