That darned cat! Or How I Did Something Today I Feel Proud Of→[More:]I got up this morning to find that the cats had been fighting with another cat (a local black tom who tries to steal their food) and had broken the perspex door on their cat flap. It was split clean down the middle and as soon as I touched it it fell into two pieces. (It's had a battering from various cats over the years, and it was on its last legs.)

Ordinarily I'm quite a handy person and would've bought another cat flap and spent the day replacing it. But it's fitted into a double-glazed door, so a new cat flap would have to be fitted by a glazier, involving a new door panel and a couple of hundred pounds. Gah!

I decided anyway to buy a new cat flap in order to take it apart and see how the parts fitted together and to see if I could use the parts to fix my broken one - I didn't want to take apart the one fitted on my door in case I broke it. The new cat flap was only £10 anyway, and I was able to see how it came apart. I took off the outside panel on my door, but couldn't get the inner panel off, the one I'd need to fit the new perspex door into. And the new door wouldn't fit into the opening unless the panel came off.

So, I needed to come up with a repair. The old door had a moulded plastic rod across the top which slotted into the opening. So I needed something that was slightly flexible, but still fairly rigid, so I could bend it into place.

After hunting round, I found one of these which I'd bought in a pound shop a while ago and didn't use. Perfect!

So I cut it to the right length to make a rod, then I took two A5 laminate pouches, folded them over the rod and ran them through the laminator as far as they'd go. Then I flipped the anti-jam switch and pulled the pouches out, double thickness with the rod sealed inside. I used the iron to seal all the way up to the rod. I trimmed it to fit the opening and was able to bend the rod slightly to fit, then straighten it along the top.

It works! It doesn't swing back and forth like the old door did, but it covers the opening.

Obviously, I can't lock it as I could the other door, but I don't think that's going to be a huge issue. At the moment, due to the corner of the building sinking slightly, I can't open the back door anyway (I use the patio door from the living room to get into the garden instead). So even if an enterprising burglar tried to reach in and open the door, he'd be out of luck.

When the insurers eventually sort out the subsidence (in two years, at least) then they'll replace the back door with a new one, and at that time I'll get a new cat flap. But this'll do until then.

I know this is probably something really tiny in the grand scheme of things but it made me feel good today that I was able to find a solution to a problem.