If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off

If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off. It didn't matter where we were - traveling around the country, at a hospital appointment with Mum, or a hotel in Hong Kong, Dad would suddenly strike up a conversation with a seemingly random person and it would turn out they knew each other in some obscure way. Rather than spend money on professional piano movers, somehow Dad convinced every abled-bodied person in our street to pitch in and help carry the piano up the stairs, which they did willingly. I don't know what Mr McGregor thought when Dad turned up one afternoon with a large sheet of polythene and a staple gun but he let him cover the old hen-house with it without question. Dad salvaged a particular light with a green LED, took it apart, and hung the still-working electrics in the dining room window. Quick as a flash, Dad explained that it was a new Auckland Council initiative to remind elderly people to close their curtains when it got dark. Maureen queried where it was the following year, and Dad explained the scheme had ended after complaints and the elderly were left to control their own curtain closing once more.