Things that go beep in the night...

Sarah emerged from her room bleary eyed at 2am to find me standing on a piano stool, with a very dodgy knee, at the top of the stairs, swearing at the smoke alarm. She squeezed past to the bathroom, then squeezed past again on her way back to bed and didn’t say a word....

As I was about to stick a screwdriver into the bloody thing to stop it beeping I noticed it said “mains operated smoke alarm”. Maybe the metal screwdriver wasn’t such a good idea. Ten minutes of swearing trying to find the piece of paper that tells us which of the electrical switches is which and I discovered it says “8 -  lights (smoke alarms??)”.  Not very definitive. So back up the piano stool in the dark, armed with a torch, the screwdriver, a YouTube video and no real assurance I wasn’t about to get electrocuted;  I finally  dislodged the bloody thing, which clattered down the stairs and freaked out the already terrified dog.

The dog then barked at the back door, but refused to come back inside so I had to go and retrieve her in the rain, wearing John’s size 12 beach shoes that happened to be the nearest to hand.

As I trudged wearily back up the stairs the bloody smoke alarm, now without any source of power, beeped. FFS!!!

Closer inspection tells me it’s past its use by date, which according to Google can lead to “erratic behaviour”. You don’t say.

Anyway it’s nothing if not punctual. And it’s in the bin. Still beeping.