The Disappearing Door

"What is it with you and closing doors?"

I practically crawled up the stairs. It was about 12.30AM - hey, gimme a break, I'm 40 now, that's a pretty wild night! - and I'd worked for a good few hours on the office after yesterday's walk. I was keen to show off the fact that the room was...well, a functioning room...before we collapsed into bed.
"It's just tidier," I muttered.
"Did you lock this thing?"
"Hasn't got a lock dear, you're just tired."
"Err...no," she said, waggling the handle and pushing.
"It's locked," she said again.
"Can't be locked," I said. "Hasn't got a lock. Really..."
"Welllll I don't know what to tell you dear, but this," she said, unconsciously John-Cleesing, "is a locked...door."
I frowned, pushed her gently out of the way, waggled the handle.
"Erm..." I said.
"It's locked," I said.
"Yyyyep," said d.
"Can't be locked," I reiterated, spiralling into a pointless little self-argument. "It hasn't got a lock!" I waggled the handle more firmly, pushed a shoulder against the door.
"Ahem..." said d.
"Do you have a screwdriver dear?"
"Yep," I said. "Got three."
"Oh great - Where are they?"
"They're on a shelf on the bookcase on the other side of the door."
"Not helping!"
"Think you've got problems?" I muttered. "My iPod's on the other side of this door. Hell, every Dr Who DVD I own is on the other side of this door!"
Realising this was true as I said it, I took to bashing on the wood to try and get it to see reason. The door did its utmost to impress upon me the fact that I could whine all I liked, for all it cared. It wasn't budging. I could almost swear it stuck its tongue out at me.
d padded exhaustedly downstairs, rummaged around for a couple of minutes, and came back with a flat head screwdriver. The screws in the door-handle were Philips. It didn't seem the right time to point this out, so I set to work taking off the door handle. We tried the door.
Nada.
We pulled out the rod conecting both sides of the door. That didn't make it happy. Neither did it make it obliging. I screwed the door handle back on, tried it again, in that faintly hopeless way you do when you think 'maybe the last twenty minutes were a dream...' They weren't.
"Maybe the CD rack has fallen over and is just blocking the door," suggested d. 
I blinked the fatigue back out of my eyes.
"Mebbe," I acknowledged. "Didn't hear anything fall though."
"Maybe..." said d.
I've learned to vaguely cringe at that "Maybe..." It inevitably precedes a suggestion that is of such appalling good sense I have to agree to it, and end up doing strategically sound but situationally stupid things for an hour or so.
She looked up. Abover the door was what d called a 'jealousy window' - but which I, being an uncultured nonce, call "a bunch of glass slats, angled to stop you seeing any damn thing. They were apparently held in place merely by a coat of paint.
I looked at d. Nodded. In all fairness, she's more than ready to equip me when she has schemes like this. She padded back downstairs again, and came back with a three-step ladder. I climbed it, and waved a flashlight through the slats.
"Well, the main one is still upright," I said.
"What about the small one? The one that's right next to the door?"
"Well...that's a small one," I said.
"Yes dear..."
"Means I won't be able to see it anyway from up here," I condescended.
"I know that honey," she said, producing a pair of small knives. I blinked.
"Err...let's not be hasty..." I said, smiling quickly, and scampering down off the ladder.
She rolled her eyes and climbed the ladder, started to scrape away at the layer of paint holding the slats in place
"Ohh, right," I said, hiding a yawn. Badly.
"This is useless," she announced a few moments later.
"Yes dear," I said.
We did a few more experiments, and determined, in the absence of hard evidence, that the door had more give at the top and bottom, and that it was the lock itself that was the fatal obstinacy.
With that much agreed between us, we went to bed.
Today, d and Ma were due to be at a car boot sale, leaving me to work in the office and do some walking. Now, we told Ma about the Door (it had acquired a capital letter for itself in the night), and then they went with Plan A - heading to the sale. Plan B for me was to wait in for the Jason the Door Guy.

In one of the most impressive deviations from London living - we called him at about 9.30, and by 12.30 on the same Sunday, he was walking through our (front) door. He set about the offending door with a couple of screwdrivers and a certain amount of brute force, and within about twenty minutes, he was walking out again, with the latch of the door, in several pieces, in his hand. He's coming back tomorrow evening to fit a replacement.

The excitement of the door (I stripped it of its capital letter because it turned out to be a wuss when faced with Jason the Door Guy and his magic screwdrivers) being over so soon, I buggered off and went walking as planned. So...nehh! Got some walking today, in spite of the door. Then, admittedly, went ot Ma's for a big Sunday Dinner.

All of which is relatively immaterial - tomorrow's the day - tomorrow I move into the office, properly, and tomorrow, we go to get assessed at the gym. The proper fight-back starts...erm...tomorrow.

Blood was 4.8 this morning, incidentally, for any remaining vampires in the crowd.