Tap into the weekend...

This afternoon's activities have been mostly Tap related, but for once I haven't been to my favourite pub or even revisited one of my favourite films, I have been on a quest for one of these:

This is a ceramic tap gland and if it makes you feel any better, I hadn't seen one quite like this until a couple of weeks ago either. Any taps I've dismantled before had a simple rubber washer that could be replaced in an instant, but no, I had to inherit taps that were different. Surely all I had to do was just nip down to B&Q and get a replacement?

Incidentally have you every tried to use the B&Q website? It's about as user unfriendly as you could dream of, but fortunately, the people in store are usually the exact opposite.

Today was no exception - I showed the existing one to the assistant who readily explained the difference between the four seemingly identical replacements I had in my hand. The only difference apparently being the splines at the top which are designed to fit a multitude of tap levers and handles and as nobody seems to have established any standards, this in turn means there a lot of different ones.

Long story short, after 20 miles of to-ing and fro-ing in the car, lots of helpful people but nobody stocks the model I need so I came home and re-fitted the original again. Except that for some reason it doesn't drip anymore. I ought to be delighted that I've saved some money but on reflection I'm probably worse off when I think of the petrol I've used...