The standby battery in our mains-wired smoke alarm suddenly ran out at 11pm on Friday and started making a regular and profoundly annoying chirp at regular intervals. It does not sleep. We still do not have a hall light because a bulb in series went an hour after our light fitting was REINSTALLED by an electrician on our last visit a year ago. This was one of my priority jobs that fell by the wayside in my current struggle to get everything to do with my parents in law sorted out before I leave for Canada. So, frustrated and irritated, I went to bed, shut the doors, tried to ignore the regular interval chirping, buried my head under the duvet and wept myself to sleep.

I’d originally planned to spend the weekend away somewhere at a country spa on the way down from Edinburgh but it seemed that every hotel in the country was fully booked last week so this, dear friend, is how I spent Friday night instead.

The following morning I climbed up our step ladder that is a ladder without steps dressed only in my little silk pyjama top. I am 5′ 0″ tall (that’s 152cm) and I can only just reach the smoke alarm even if I balance on the topmost rung. An accident beckoned and I quickly decided that if I fell and hurt myself – a distinct possibility –  the attending paramedics would flee in horror at the sight and the chirping would continue to taunt me. So I showered, dressed and patiently tried to find the correct screwdriver with which to prise the cover off the smoke alarm. Somehow, after two attempts I managed to replace the battery only to discover that IT STILL CHIRPED, if anything louder and in a mocking tone.

So I headed off down to Waitrose on foot because my car is currently SORNED to discover that they had sold out of 9V batteries. And the new local Co-op had never stocked them anyway. By this point I was wondering how I was going to avoid being driven off the edge of my precipice before the electrician arrived on Monday.

And then my dear, lovely, ORGANISED friend Sarah rode to the rescue on her hybrid steed, complete with battery and steps and replaced the battery and stopped the incessant chirping. And yet again I found reason, as if reason were needed, to be eternally grateful for her friendship, the looooong chat and then golden SILENCE.

Lessons learned:

Always keep a 9V battery wrapped in its packet in the house; ✔️

If you physically cannot do things because you’re too small, no amount of stretching will make you able to reach so you need help and/or the right tools;

Cultivate friendships with kind and capable people;

A job that takes five minutes can be a way to spend precious time with a friend you have not seen for too long;

Book a long time in advance.