The broken lock!

Time and time again, both me and my wife have to tell our boys to stop playing with the door. "Don't slam it!" - "Don't swing on the handle" - "Don't fight through it".... Well, I'm sure you get the picture.

I am worried for two reasons - First, one of them is going to get hurt. I accidentally trapped Ryans fingers in the door the other day, which I felt really bad about, but had the door been slammed on his fingers rather than just closed he could well have lost them or at least broken them rather than just been a bit bruised!

So, once again, I hear the front door go BANG, but didn't click shut,but no sound of tears, so nobody is hurt, but something must have been in the way to prevent it's closure. That somethign made itself quite clear when I opened the door to see the keys sticking out at a surprisingly jaunty angle. Gingerly I removed the front door key........I was right to be careful, but it did not good. What I actually removed was half a key. The other half of course was still stuck in the lock. Fortunately my father in law was round, and although I had managed to remove the door handle and gained access to the barrel, I didn't know how to release it. Between us we worked it out, but we were on a tight schedule, as the locksmiths was ony going to be open for another 15 minutes. No sooner was the barrel out, than I was in the car dashing doen to buy a new one. I was expecting the worst, so was pleasantly surprised to find that a new barrel was only just under £20 (I thought it would be between £30-£35).

I was told that lining the new lock up could be pretty tricky, but lady luck once more smiled on me, and it went in place with ease - Job done!