MUCH of today was spent lying on the bathroom floor, feeling rather dizzy and completely out of my depth.

No, I hadn’t been over indulging in the sort of liquid refreshment which has been known to bring me to my knees in the bathroom before, and I hadn’t fallen out of the shower – I was just undertaking my third bathroom DIY assignment in six months.

You may recall that some months ago, I somehow succeeded in installing a new bathroom cabinet, and once I had recovered from that ordeal, I nobly wielded the pasting brush with such skill that Mrs Hextol was able to wallpaper the entire bathroom.

I thought it looked great, but Mrs Hextol then announced with some disdain that the new look was being sullied by the still perfectly serviceable, but advanced in years, toilet seat.

Now I have spent a lot of time polishing that seat with my nether regions, not just to answer calls of nature, but as the seat of power for playing Scrabble and other word games on my little computer.

It’s just about the only place I can enjoy five or 10 minutes’ peace and quiet, with little fear of interruption.

Occasionally Mrs Hextol will rattle the door or make inquiries as to how I am progressing with the writing of my will, but generally speaking I am left alone.

It was therefore in my own interests to have a comfortable seat and it was only when we got to a well-known DIY emporium in Hexham that I remembered what a complex business toilet seat purchase can be.

There were rows and rows of netty seats on the wall, in wood, plastic and what looked like glass, and I was stunned to find they came in all manner of different sizes.

I always assumed toilet seats were of a pretty standard size, but this is not the case, with options varying by several inches. So we came home empty handed so I could measure the gap between the hinges, and it was a week later that Mrs Hextol made her selection, checked the size was in the permitted range – and handed it to me to be fitted.

Previous toilet seat fittings have not gone well, with complaints about the seat sliding about like a circular toboggan going down the Sele Bank, or having to sit hunched up like Quasimodo because the seat had been placed too far back.

There were also incidents of the lid snapping shut like a hungry crocodile halfway through a performance by gentleman visitors.

I determined to read the instructions very thoroughly before even attempting a fitting – but was thwarted by the fact the instructions were inside the sealed polythene covering housing the seat.

A notice attached to the outside of the packet stated that once the plastic cover had been removed, the product could not be taken back “for hygiene reasons”.

Throwing caution to the winds, I ripped away the plastic sheeting and endless sheets of corrugated cardboard to get to the instructions, which to my horror ran to several pages, and involved glue, gaskets, masking tape, cardboard templates and may also have included trunnions, flanges and grommets.

There was even an instruction to stretch a piece of cling film over the loo itself, not as a schoolboy joke, but to prevent vital components disappearing round the U-bend.

There were diagrams which appeared as complex as the blueprint for a minor nuclear device, and there were innumerable screws, washers and other bits and bobs, all packed tightly into an intimidating packet.

I am sure the last time I fitted a toilet seat, I just had to poke two long screws through the holes and after a little purposeful jiggling, to tighten up the little nuts to provide a secure seat, but things had clearly moved on since then.

After many minutes of careful study, I realised that before I could even start installing the new seat, I had to remove the old one!

None of the vast array of spanners at my disposal came anywhere near fitting the two locking nuts securing the old seat, so I had to resort to my trusty adjustable grips to do the job.

I was so exhausted by this time I threw away all the templates and the glue, and stuck the seat on the old way – and so far it is working well!