THANKS to my mate Bob - who is a builder and probably gets fed up with the inevitable joke about his name and occupation - I now have three new double-glazed windows at the front of our house.

Not being a builder, I have an instinctive fear of attacking anything structural around the home, and I've heard too many tales of DIY bodgers knocking out load-bearing walls and bringing the house down.

But Bob knows his stuff and was kind enough to give up a cold, rainy Saturday morning to show me the way.

Mind you, being a sensible chap, he contrived to do all the work on the warm, dry inside while I stood at the top of the ladder outside, trying to appear useful as I got wetter and wetter.

The work, in essence, involved taking a large power-saw and an even larger wrecking bar and hacking the old metal-framed windows out of the brickwork before sliding brand-new UPVC replacements into the holes and fixing them in place with that miraculous expanding foam which sticks like whatsisname to a blanket.

There was one nasty moment when the entire, heavy, upstairs window - glass and all - suddenly detached itself and fell outwards into my arms.

It was only a desperate grab for the brickwork that saved me from toppling backwards to the ground with half-a-hundredweight of metal and glass on top of me, which would have spoiled the weekend somewhat.

Now, I have to redecorate our bedroom and there'll be tears before bedtime, because it's happened before.

It was like this. There's something very appealing about finishing work early, especially on a winter's day, getting home and flopping out in front of the television with a cup of tea.

With a bit of luck, there'll be something worth watching, like rugby league, and it's a joy to sit in the warm, watching men get paid to push each other's faces in the mud as they lever themselves to their feet after yet another bone-crunching tackle.

But my wife, who doesn't understand the pleasure of watching other people suffer, appears from the kitchen, with the dreaded words: "I don't suppose we could go and look at some wallpaper for the bedroom...?"

This is a sentence that defies the usual rules of grammar.

It is constructed as a question, delivered in a hopeful voice and even has a question mark at the end.

But a husband will not be misled - it is a question that might as well be engraved in stone like a Commandment.

It is a statement and it means: We are going to look at some wallpaper for the bedroom.

In a good, sharing, caring marriage, it ought to be possible to come back with a truthful and straightforward reply, along the lines of: "You cannot be serious. I've been working all day, there are only 20 minutes to go at Wigan and the last thing in the world I want to do is go and look at wallpaper. I'm not even good at it because I lack taste and have absolutely no sense of colour coordination. Why don't you go on your own?"

But what you actually say is: "OK then."

And then she plays the master stroke which still has an apparent question mark.

"But only if you want to...?"

Which forces you into a major shift of position and obliges you to commit yourself wholeheartedly to the task or appear an absolute cad.

The score at Wigan could be level with three minutes to go and that muddy figure thundering down the touchline could be just about to crash over the line for the winning try, but the thing is to turn the TV off with good grace, get to your feet and say: "Yes, of course I want to. Let's go now. Have you got the credit card?"

It doesn't matter that you will come back with nothing. You never do with wallpaper, the first outing.

The thing is to show willing.