I *really* need that shower!

This weekend is one of the only times we have free to get the study tidied before our forthcoming housewarming party. We've booked a plasterer to come the week after the party and the entire study has to be empty. It's one of the few large accessible spaces so we've tended to use it as a dumping ground since we moved in for anything that's too heavy to carry up into the attic room (or when we just couldn't be arsed) and it's also pretty full of bookshelves and filing.

All this has to go somewhere else by May 31, but this has the added advantage of freeing the study up to be the karaoke room on party night. The original plan was to use the conservatory for this, but I'd been worried by the proximity of that to the main party areas, especially the lounge where I'd really wanted disco music to be playing. The two activities are mutually exclusive in my experience and while I didn't want to lose the karaoke, I didn't want it to detract from the main party music.

Having it upstairs solves that problem, so today's task was to move as much "stuff" as possible out of the study. Mainly up into the attic, but also in some cases out into the shed, or (temporarily) into our room.

Hot, sweaty work. Dusty too, since much of it was still covered in building dust from when the toilet wall came down. All day long I was looking forward to that first shower. Stepping under the cool drizzle from our super new rain head and soaping up all over. It's what kept me going, up and down the loft ladder, until about 5pm.

Finally, it was time. I turned on the shower and undressed. The water ran very hot, so stepping around the downpour to reach the dial, I turned it toward the cold. It ran hotter. Unsure whether this was just because the combiboiler was only now reaching its operating temperature, I turned the control the other way. The water stayed hot. I turned it fully clockwise. Hot. Fully anticlockwise. Hot. Too hot to stand underneath. Nikki had been watching the whole show and we just looked at each other through the shower screen, unable to believe it. Can I say jinxed?

I turned the shower off and stepped out. I could understand if the pipes had been plumbed the wrong way round - our dear fitter has a track record for that, having plumbed the taps incorrectly on both the bath and the sink - but the shower behaved as if it had *only* a hot water supply. Nikki fetched the instructions while I dried off. Reading the final installation instructions, it appeared likely that the calibration hadn't been completed properly. The temperature knob has to be set to the right position to allow a normal range of water temperature. The instructions also mentioned a stop button - to prevent the knob being turned accidentally to a scalding position. I found the button and tried the shower again, holding my hand under the flow. But even with the full arc of adjustment available, the water still ran hot at both extremes.

We've arranged for the plumber to call back tomorrow, but after all that expectation it's another setback in a six-week saga that has been beset by them. We're really hoping it is a calibration error. If it turns out he's plumbed two hot supplies to the shower unit then the only recourse will be to lift more tiles, with all the problems that will entail for the underfloor heating.