Any old iron?

When the plasterers arrived last week, we had the radiators removed so that we could get the best result. It's not really surprising that most people don't take radiators off when decorating, even though the end result is never as good as it can be when you have a clear run with brush, roller, or wallpaper. But what does surprise me is the number of times you see a room skimmed without removing the rads. This always ends up looking like crap.

So anyway, we're doing things properly and the radiators came off - even though in this case it was a traumatic process. Once they'd been removed, we started considering replacing them. The originals were old, overlarge and relatively inefficient compared with newer finned models. Once we'd investigated the cost of replacement it was a no-brainer.

We'd taken the rads down into the hall to get them out of the way of the plasterers but it was clear they couldn't stay there for long. Paul and I carried the larger of the two (it was about 2500mm long) out into the front garden and propped it under the dining room window. The smaller one fitted easily in the car and I took it to the tip along with the few bags of plastering rubble the guys had left behind. But the larger one was more of a problem. A problem I decided to defer for another day.

Returning home from work on Tuesday of last week, Nikki and I were puzzled to see a black mark on the front path. A smudge, several feet long, splashed right down the middle of the path, with smaller splashes on the bushes at either side. We were nonplussed; momentarily unable to work out what the mark could be. Paul had cleaned the path with our spiffy new power washer the week before, and the plasterers had left creamy boot prints all up and down the path, but this was something else; something entirely different.

Then my gaze moved to the dining room window. Something was missing. The radiator. Of course! The mark was dried-up radiator water, heavy with black iron oxide. Someone had come into the garden and "stolen" our large radiator! For a split second I was outraged at the theft. Then I came to my senses. We were throwing it out anyway. All the thief had done was solved my problem of how to get it to the tip. I was reminded of the tongue-in-cheek advice offered on a local bulletin board to someone who was finding it impossible to give away some unwanted furniture: Leave it on your front path with a sign saying "second-hand furniture for sale" and someone is bound to steal it!