Matki

This is the Matki Essence concealed valve - it's on the front of the Matki brochure, which is probably because it's so damned good looking. Gorgeous isn't it? And a snip at £1,100, though admittedly you get a shower head to match it and a hand held rinser thing that allows you to reach..ahem...other parts (you know, like the corners of the shower tray).

Anyway, the reason I'm showing you this is because I've been to the bathroom shop this afternoon, where Roger the tap and Keith the click clack have been looking at our plans and weighing up my amateur bathroom designing skills, which are only marginally better than your average orang-utan might achieve with the same pencil.

The Matki Essence valve is non-negotiable, you see. Despite the price, this is not a corner that can be cut or a saving that can be made and the reason for this is because the Matki Essence has been winking at me since 2004 and would have been fitted in our last project around that time if our budget hadn't then run away with itself, much as it's doing at the moment. In fact, the Matki Essence is beginning to feel a bit like Warner Brothers' Road Runner - always just out of reach of Wile. E. Cayote, only this time the Cayote is me and I'm going to catch it.

'You can't fit it on a wall' says Roger the tap. 'Well, not on an external wall - it has to go on a stud wall.' I hadn't a clue about this, so it's a good job I went to the bathroom shop because the other option is to buy all of this stuff online where nobody is going to advise you about what goes where.

'And your stud partition is blocking your light' he points out, quite rightly - just in time to save the said partition wall from being built and rendering the corner of the en-suite our very own black hole of Calcutta.

I like this bathroom shop. Keith the Click Clack lives round the corner from me. He noticed the postbox had been knocked down, but he's willing to forgive me because he likes my new roof. You don't get that online either. Long live the local business.