It's a shame about the poor old West Pier isn't it?

It's looked ready to collapse into the sea since I first moved to Brighton in the Seventies but it was sad, although not surprising, to see the inevitable actually happen.

If they go ahead and decide to try to restore it I think they'd better get a move on before the rest falls apart.

We are looking at renovating a creaky old structure of our own at present, in this case our kitchen.

We put a new one in when we moved here 11 years ago. At the time it was the cheapest available as that's all we could afford and we paid a friend - who knew nothing about fitting kitchens but knew which end of a hammer you hit nails with, which we didn't - peanuts to install it.

This is possibly why we are the only people we know with a useful double electrical plug socket immediately above the kitchen sink and cupboard doors that open miraculously by themselves if you stamp on a certain section of floorboard across the room.

However it's lasted all this time and so we've definitely had our money's worth.

The fact it's still standing at all says something for the company we bought it from.

It is now really tatty and desperately in need of replacement so we made the decision, once the bank manager had agreed, to get a new one.

I never realised what a stressful experience choosing a new kitchen could be.

For a start they're all vastly more expensive than I thought. Then there's the problem of choosing.

Did I want to go cosmopolitan sleek and smooth or did I desire rustic farmhouse?

One company sent round a very nice lady who brought lots of sample doors and worktops with her.

We had a good girly time discussing the different merits of maple tongue and groove against traditional beech and which door handle went with which.

Him indoors limited his input to glancing through a couple of brochures and muttering "it's only a kitchen" before he vanished into the living room to watch the telly.

Daughter said: "How much? Do you know how many new designer clothes I could get with that much money? A far more useful way of spending it." Then she vanished upstairs to phone a friend.

In the end I had to shout at both of them to come and look at the sample doors and agree on which ones we all liked.

After that they point blank refused to look at different door handles or discuss the finer points of a variety of sinks, saying it was up to me.

They always do that with major purchases. They let me choose so that if everything goes badly wrong they can blame me and say it's my fault.

In addition to a new kitchen we are also getting new windows and new floors and various other bits and bobs done.

I think we are in for quite a few months of stress and mess but it will all be worth it in the end.