A cold, windy, 10 mile ride to the home of Mrs J, certainly blew away any lingering cobwebs, following a relaxing start to my day...

Mrs J is a friendly, interesting Jamaican lady in her 80s, who has spent 62 years living in Liverpool.

It was obvious from the first moments that she is very independent, knows exactly what she wants, and takes a great deal of pride in her home of 20 years, which was immaculate.

As it turned out, the task did not involve fixing a kitchen drawer, as I thought, but was actually to replace a facia board that had fallen off and had been causing stress and something of a trip hazard.

The first task was to clean both surfaces that were to be glued back together. The old glue was difficult to remove, and several tools were employed to little effect.

Eventually, I spotted what I needed... a Brillo Pad! With some hot water and a lot of elbow grease, the panel and cupboard were clean, dry and ready to be glued.

Mrs J had a small bottle of super glue, which turned out to have gone off and was just a solid lump. Fortunately, another tube of glue was found and the panel soon put in place.

Then we had to find a way to support the weight until the glue set... several attempts failed, and finally a couple of bricks from the garden were employed.

I advised Mrs J to leave it overnight... and hope that the repair holds.

As I had about 20 minutes still to spare, I was able to create a clear, safe passageway into the garden shed and move two small tables for Mrs J.

She was very grateful for the help and I was grateful for the exercise 😁🚴