Locks Away

At the weekend we managed to loose the key for the side door into the garage, no big problems you might think, keys get lost all the time! True but this is the only key we have AND the garage is difficult to access via the up and over door, we cant get our vehicle into the garage anyhow and use said garage as storage space, added to that we need access several times a day, the fridge freezer and tumble dryer are in there and we store a lot of dry food, boxes etc, in there too.
So Saturday evening when we discovered the key was missing we went into a mild panic and searched high and low! I wont apportion blame but we know who was the last person to have it and it wasn’t me  anyhow, in the grand scheme of things its not the end of the world, a major irritation for the weekend as there was no way I was going to call a locksmith out at the kind of likely call out charges for a weekend, it would have to wait until Monday.
This morning I called our good friend Derek, who co-project managed our church building project with me, on the basis that if he cant fix it he will certainly know a person (being politically correct even though it was almost certainly going to be a man!) who could!
To my surprise he said he would be round in half an hour and have a look.
Anyhow, we gained access to the garage via the up and over door, no mean feat without getting knocked out but we managed it, and Derek set too cutting out the old mortice, we already had a combination lock that I had planned to fit to that door, the door is in pretty constant use and we wanted to have a way of stopping Princess Nat and Stevey from gaining access without the messing about of having to remove the key each time as well as overcoming the ongoing problem of forgetting to lock the door when we go out or remembering after we have locked the main house up so having to unlock the house again to hang the key up.
So within the space of a he hours we had the old lock cut out and the new combination lock fitted, anyone who knows me will know that I have a real thing about keys and am really keen on combination locks because it over comes the whole problem of loosing keys etc, I also hate carrying too many keys around with me so it is really nice now to see the door fitted with a brand new combination keypad lock.
It was a job that I could have done and, under normal circumstances would have done well before now but at least it’s now done and we can safely say that we won’t loose the keys for the garage again!
Although we will have to see how much the whole thing will cost us, I am also hopeful that Derek might well be able to sort the main up and over garage door as well, he certainly was going to look at this but I was out when he had finished so didn’t get the chance to speak to him about it.
The thing about this is that it is so good to have a friend who is able to turn his hand to just about anything, someone that you can call on to help in times of crisis and who will either be able to sort the problem or point you the right direction for someone who can! Thanks Derek for all your help, you are a little star and I still want to adopt you as my dad.
D