I have recently had my double glazing replaced.  It was quite a big decision to take.  There was the expense for one thing.  New windows don’t come cheap.  But there was also the upheaval factor.  I am not someone who enjoys change.  Generally, I would prefer to maintain the status quo than willingly force change upon myself.  But, I could see that the decision was gradually being taken out of my hands.  Some of my old windows would no longer open; worse still, some of my old windows were in danger of no longer being able to close.  I could not continue to procrastinate and put off the evil moment.  A change was needed.  Out with the old; in with the new.

To give them their due, the men who replaced my double glazing could not have been more efficient, industrious, and determined to keep any inconvenience to me to a minimum.  And yet, I still experienced a strange sense of disquiet.  It was easy to identify.  It was a feeling of guilt regarding my old windows.  They had served me well for 25 years.  They might have got a bit older and more unreliable during that time but, then, haven’t we all?  It seemed rather cruel to so brutally rip them from their previously happy home without any warning.

The night before the planned replacement of my double glazing, I lay a long time in bed, speculating about the feelings of my old windows.  They wouldn’t have harboured any notion that this was to be their last night spent attached to my house.  They would have envisaged a peaceful future of continuity stretching out ahead of them, not realising that such a fateful dawn awaited them.  I wanted to be able to reassure them; to thank them for their service; to let them know it was nothing that they’d done, it was just me; a simple upgrade, nothing personal.  I hope that my thoughts might have communicated to them in some way, and I wouldn’t like them to think that I wasn’t grateful for all the time we had spent together.  If we had to part, at least let us part on good terms.

Now, I have my new windows.  And they are great.  They open effortlessly, without any fear that the handle will fall off, and they don’t let in big puddles of condensation onto the window ledge.  But, I haven’t entirely forgotten my old windows.  It would be nice to think of them having gone on to a better place but, I know in that regard, I would be fooling myself.  The best they can hope for is to be recycled; the worst a scrap heap, slowly eroding away to destruction.  Perhaps, like my friendly pest controller told me, I am over-thinking things, or perhaps it is just my way of attempting to put off having to upgrade my avocado bathroom suite?  Baths have feelings too.

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree has more Window Friends than he does Facebook Friends.