At some point this evening, as we studied step 5 or 7 of the instructions to construct Ms A's chest of drawers, Anne convinced me that the metal circular pieces from a particular angle (what we now know are called "cam lock nuts" - of which 42 were needed to be twisted in place for this particular unit - some more than once...) resembled the profile of Alfred Hitchcock (personally I blame such hallucinations on a lack of food as the evening wore on and on...).

It was made all the harder by there being limited space to move around (especially once the structure was complete), as we could only build the unit in the bedroom, it being quite dark (again thanks to the genius who put a torch on a phone), and there being quite a large number of parts to join together using the aforementioned Hitchcock nuts and various other bolts, screws and nails. Fortunately we'd brought tools...but not an electric screwdriver nor knee pads.

You know when you've gone beyond the call of duty when the Mission Accomplished email arrives in your inbox whilst you're still actually on the mission, but we certainly weren't going to leave Ms A with a half built set of drawers, and, in spite of our sore hands, knees and other joints caused by contorting ourselves into unnatural positions to tweak just one more Hitchcock into place within the confined space, we finally fitted the last drawer (piece #13...), and stood up gingerly to admire our long drawn out handiwork.

Ms A, who'd had to endure watching and listening to our late evening construction efforts from her bed (but who cleverly had ordered her dinner to be delivered in), was delighted the cardboard boxes had finally been replaced by a useful piece of furniture.

I think we were both just glad we could still stand up...