Nothing' Easy Is It?

[Sean Regan]

I installed four of these ceramic light shades I'd bought from Homebase, in the front room over twenty years ago, on two adjoining walls. They are made of quite thick ceramic. The lights in this room, are controlled by three switches near the door, one each for the pairs of wall lights and one for, as Peter Kay would say, "The big light."

Ten years ago, when we had the lounge re-decorated, my wife asked me if we could have the same shades in that room.
I checked with Homebase and I found they still stocked them!

Well.. Not quite.
Some bright spark had decided they could be made of paper thin ceramic and they could charge twice as much for them. But I bought two.

I carefully drilled a hole in the bottom as they needed to be worked by a pull switch like the ones we had in there at the time, I recycled the pull-switches. More drilling required to attach them. Job done.

After I'd turned one of the lights off last night, the cord (a bit of wire, actually) came off in my hand. So this morning I had to drag out the sofa to get to it.
Re-attaching the cord to the switch was a right pain, very fiddly and took ages, as when I put them up I'd fixed the switch before putting the shade on the wall. I wasn't going to risk taking them off the wall as they are so thin and brittle. Anyway all done.
I'm getting too old for these sorts of jobs.