I think I shall give up attempting anything to do with electricity.  When I replaced the light in Chrystal's room earlier this year I managed to give myself a shock, as I did years ago when I was repairing a kettle lead.

Yesterday I replaced a couple of light switches.  I managed to avoid an electric shock, although I don't know how.   The switch in the hall downstairs is one of those triple jobs which controls the porch light, hall and upstairs landing and it was practically falling apart.

Before putting a new one in I turned the lights on and flicked the circuit breaker switches until it went out.  Satisfied that the circuit was off I proceeded to wire up the new switch.

It was a bit complicated with about 9 wires going into 8 connectors, plus another wire connecting two of them together like a sort of jumper.  I was careful to put the wires into the same place on the new switch as they were on the old one and as I put the final wire in I was gobsmacked to see the upstairs light come on. I didn't realise that they were on a different circuit which I had left live.

Anyway, after wondering how I had avoided zapping myself yet again I put it all back and tested it out and found that the outside lamp wasn't working. By then it was getting a bit too dark to check the wiring. Later on I found that the upstairs switch wasn't working either – it would control the downstairs light but not the upstairs one.

Later on, Jayne told me that the outside light was working after all so I was feeling a bit better about it all.  I tried not to think about how it could suddenly spring into life.

This evening the outside light wasn't working again.  I hate intermittent faults, always my least favourite type of fault.

Later on tonight I sussed why the outside light sometimes works and sometimes doesn't…  its all connected to the upstairs switch!  The one I didn't touch at all.

It looks like I made a real botch of replacing that switch.  Makes the one I did in the kitchen look like a good job: that one is only upside down.