I gave up on iffy public transport, fearing that I would end up stuck in Littleborough, even further from home than when I started! Instead, I walked the 5 miles back. My friend had offered to pay for a taxi to avoid flood waters by taking to the hilltops but it would probably have cost her £15 and I needed the exercise anyway.
Fortunately, the rain had finally stopped and the A646 mini-flood seemed to be receding. By the time I got to the flooded part it was only 6 inches deep so vehicles could have been let through if only drivers would drive sensibly for the conditions. In reality, some idiot would probably drive into the water at 60-70 mph and come a cropper so the police were stopping everyone. I heard some drivers saying that they lived in the flood zone so they were let through but I saw some of them continue through the other road block on the far side, so they were fibbing.
I was lucky in that the water on the pavement was only an inch deep so I was able to get by without getting my feet wet.
As for the replacement door ... I had managed to hang it without too much faffing about. The gap at the bottom is slightly bigger than the already fairly big gap below the original door and my friend and I agreed that this gap is
too big, so I will attach a strip of timber to the bottom of the door at a later date. More importantly though, we discovered a significant problem with the door. The, er... [
consults online description of door components 
] - the lock stile is not a consistent width from one end to the other so the width of the complete door also varies from one end to the other. I imagine that this had been done to make the door fit a correspondingly irregular door frame, but it meant that it doesn't fit its new frame properly. The bottom of the door is 76.5 cm and about right. The middle is nearly 77 cm and is too big. The top is nearer 76 cm and a bit small. Householder friend can put up with the narrow top to the door, but not an 'obese waist' which stops it closing! I'll sort that out when I take the door off to lengthen it. We also want to fit new round handles and a simple ball catch.
