I'm blind!

Last night I was forced into yet another DIY project. Since moving into our new house we've found that at 5am each morning, when the hellish sun rises, our flimsy bedroom curtains have been waving the jovial little morning photons through to pound our unconcious eyelids. It is a cruel awakening.

Is there anything worse in the world than the sun? It wakes you up, makes you hot and sweaty, makes the damn plants release their nasty allergenic pollens, gives you skin cancer and is generally unpleasant. Thankfully this year we've been blessed with almost continuous rain, so the hell ball hasn't been able to work it's usual summer evil.

Our mission was to foil the evil sun. Two young, broke but resourceful people vs. a 1.4 million kilometer diameter ball of burning hydrogen, radiating 1366 Watts per square meter through our windows. That's the equivalent 30 100 Watt lightbulbs being flicked on outside our window every day.

With us being broke, the only solution was to purchase two of the very cheapest blackout blinds that Argos had to offer and install them to block the sun until such time as we could afford something better. You will note the following exciting features:

• Complete blackout.
• Keeps a room cool in summer and warm in winter.
• Side winder action.

Clearly they are perfect for what we need. Normally I'd be trying to avoid any DIY tasks but this one involved drilling holes in the window frame. Let's be honest, no matter how lazy you are, power tools are fun and they are really boys toys. I could hardly let my accident prone girlfriend go up a ladder with a power drill. Aside from the strong chance she'd drill herself I'd feel like I'd gone into a pub and ordered a Bacardi Breezer. Also I've had a drill for years, and have even lent it to several friends, but the only time I've ever used it in anger was to drill holes in a bit of board we were using to hang our dartboard off*. It's not the kind of thing you can use very often in rented houses.

So last night saw me half way up a ladder, drilling holes in our window frame to install very cheap blinds. The instructions said you had to measure carefully to ensure that the blinds were level, but that seemed like a lot of faffing around. I decided I'd just put the brackets up against the top of the window frame, the window must be level mustn't it? I did mark through the holes on the brackets with pencil where I needed to drill though. This resulted in perfectly level blinds. It was very easy. This DIY stuff is a piece of piss.

You'll be pleased to know that they totally blocked out the sun and let us have at least an extra hour asleep this morning. The blinds are very cheap and a bit shit and theoretically will need replacing when we can afford it, but in practice I bet they stay there until they fall apart.

Now what can I use the big fat masonry drill bit on I wonder?

* It turns out we needn't have bothered, we were so bad at darts, and played so drunk, that missing darts hit well outside the large backboard and still covered the door in holes.