New skill unlocked: Fixing a toilet seat

Finding Ms.R's house was easier and she had everything prepared for the fixing mission today. I'm not a plumbing expert but still, I thought fixing a new toilet seat shouldn't require much skills. In fact, I've never installed a toilet seat before.

Ms.R welcomed me and told me the toilet in upstairs and then she placed the tools and the new toilet seat by the stairs. The toilet was tidy and clean. After a few wiggles, I found that the screw needs to be removed from the bottom.

Tools provided by Ms.R

• 2 pliers. One of them was hard to open/close
• 3 spanners. Sizes 10,12 and 17

The spanners didn't fit the nuts. It required size 13/14. Used one of the pliers and removed one side easily. Removing the screw from the other side seemed to be challenging. Because it is not accessible and it's in a blind spot. After 15 minutes trying every angle possible. I decided to place my phone at the bottom so that I have a mirror view. Coordinating my hands against the nut by looking into the selfie camera was a challenge on its own. The pliers kept slipping because of the wierd angle that I had to use to hold the nut.

I then went down and asked Ms.R if she had spanners of other sizes. She said her friend down the road would have one and made a phone call and confirmed the same. She asked me to wait and went to her friend's house and got the tool.

It was not a spanner, but a bigger plier. I went back and tried for 15 more minutes with no luck.

Ms.R found a toolbox and asked me if any of them would help. The box had a few pieces of tubular spanner. There was a matching piece but because the screw is long, the tubular spanner is of no use.

Ms.R then found a brand new tool box which was packed. She told me it was her son's. So I unboxed the toolbox and found a matching spanner. I went back upstairs and was happy when the spanner fit the nut. But after a few turns the nut was not moving at all. I was about to give up as it's been an hour trying to remove 1 screw/nut. I told Ms.R if I couldn't do it within the next 15 minutes, I'd put the old seat back and asked her to reach out to a professional.

I then explained the problem to Ms.R using the screw I removed earlier.

Then a spark struck me. What if I was turning it in the wrong direction!!!

Because I was using my left hand and using the selfie cam as my viewfinder, I was turning it in the opposite direction. I could see the nut now turn when I turned it the other way. After 5 minutes of careful twisting and turning, I managed to get the old seat out.

Fixing the new seat took less than 5 minutes and Ms.R was happy that I could finish the task. She handed me £20 when I was about to leave. I politely declined and got a bottle of water instead.