Quite stoically, I was mountaineering on my hands and knees over a sea of rubble to get to the temporary loo in the basement until I impaled my foot on a nail sticking out of a chunk of wood. It was partly my fault for wearing flip-flops, of course.

But the builder boyfriend grudgingly agreed I had to be mollycoddled, and allowed me the luxury of a scaffolding plank over the sea of rubble.