Driving Home For Christmas

......a lot earlier than planned! A fruitful morning with everything we wanted to do being completed in good time and with the minimum of fuss.
Plumber was scheduled to come and fit the replacement sink between 12 & 2. He actually turned up at 11.30 and got stuck in straight away. Water turned off, all pipes disconnected and - with a bit of struggling - the old sink removed. The plumber was just about to strip off all the old fittings and transfer them to the new sink when he thought it might be a good idea to check first if the new one would fit in the hole vacated by the old one.
Ah! Problem. Whilst the new sink appeared identical it was, in fact, about an inch longer. And because the plumber was winding down for Christmas, he had emptied most of his tools out of the van - including his jig saw!
We’d probably gone too far down the road to consider reconnecting the old sink, so it was decided we would head back to Kendal straight away, leaving a key with the plumber so he could come back at his convenience and fit the new sink before we come down again in the New Year.
Not ideal, and I apologised profusely for his wasted journey today. He was OK about it as he’s on call over Christmas and New Year anyway so it won’t be a problem calling round to our flat sometime and finishing the job off. I think there was also an unspoken element of being able to get on a lot better without us being around! Told him not to bother refitting the washer, unit doors or kick boards as I’m quite happy doing that next time we are down.
An uneventful trip up the M6 and we’re home in time for lunch. As I say, not what we had planned for today but sometimes you just have go with the flow. The only issue now is waiting to see if we will be able to go back down in the new year or whether we’ll all be in full lockdown again. We might not see our new sink until Easter if the doom mongers are proved correct!