The primary purpose of these is to stop Tancred getting down the passages either side of the house. He's at that age where the mere sight of gravel fills him with an insatiable desire to eat it. Unfortunately, these areas are also our cats' favoured latrines. So, to avoid Tancred (i) eating gravel at all and (ii) getting an unpleasantly soft-centred surprise when doing so, I built these gates and put them up.
We've been talking about putting barriers across the alleyways at the sides of the house since Roger Jr was at the gravel/cat poo eating stage.
Every so often for the last couple of years when at a garden centre, we look at the gates available, inhale sharply at how expensive they are, and finally realise we don't have the measurements anyway.
But not this weekend.
After Elvira measured up, Roger Jr and I jumped in the car down to Wickes – whence a quick foray into Morrisons revealed that you can buy 440ml of their own brand curry sauce for just 9p! – and bought the raw materials.
A couple of hours later – MY NAME IS ROGER OF SICILY, KING OF KINGS: LOOK ON MY WORKS YE MIGHTY AND DESPAIR. Then on Sunday, I did it again on the other side of the house with the leftover bits.
That means you can get 22 jars of it for less than a £1.99 jar of Pataks. Unbelievable value.
Now in the past, I've always been a bit crap a DIY. This is largely down to impatience and an outright contempt for inanimate objects.
From the impatience, we end up with projects begun with no idea what step two will be, let alone the finished product; whatever tool is to hand used rather than the right tool for the job; compromises made, injuries sustained.
From my hatred of the material world, frustration, rage and injuries sustained at the refusal of objects to bend to my will.
But since then, I've got a lot better. Part of that is perspective – I've seen what a bloody terrible job I've made of innumerable DIY tasks in the past, and rather than hurling myself into the same trap once again like a First World War general, I've started thinking things through beforehand. Anticipating problems – and most importantly of all, observing the vital maxim "measure twice, cut once". I've lost count of the number of times I have believed that I've measured something properly, only to get a completely different reading on the second attempt.
Apparently, they were selling for 5p each at one point.
I've also reached that age where I have accumulated almost every tool I could ever need for any straightforward DIY job. I say "accumulated" because I have little or no recollection of ever buying or being given most of the tools I have. As women magnetically attract clothes, shoes and paperbacks with bright pink covers, so tools are drawn to men. At night, they shuffle forth, edging their way towards sheds and garages, to nestle alongside others of their kind arrayed in plastic crates. Then when you go to get a new lightbulb out, you find yourself staring at a broken angle-grinder wondering where the hell it came from.
But most importantly of all – and if any idiot comes to this site looking for advice, (i) god help you but (ii) here's a good bit – my transformation was effected by upgrading from ordinary screwdrivers to an electric screwdriver. Even the simplest DIY used to be a miserable, time-sapping affair, usually concluding in a botched job with screwheads poking out or snapped off, and a huge blister in the palm of one or both of my hands. No more! Now, I just whip out my Bosch and –bzzzzt- problem solved.
Another digression – this time not concerning curry sauce (even curry sauce of unbeatable value).
Manufacturers of screws: it is highly frustrating when the err....(checks Wikipedia)... screw drive disintegrates under the pressure of the screwdriver, leaving me unable to get the screw in any further or indeed out. I know you think I'd be even more pissed off if my screwdriver's tip ground off. And I would. But can't you find a slightly tougher material for making screws than frozen butter?
Can anyone recommend to me a brand of screws whose...errr...Phillipsy bit won't just crumble out under pressure?
9p. I still can't believe it. Morrisons at Five Lane Ends in Bradford. They had loads left on Saturday.
My second favourite tool is my jigsaw. I love it (i) because sawing through anything manually is a total pain in the arse and (ii) because it feels spectacularly dangerous to use. Installing a cat flap using the jigsaw was one of the first jobs I did that went well, and instilled in me the sense of pride that turned around my standards of workmanship. It's thanks to that raging mechanical instrument of devastation that I am the thoughtful man I am today.
Putting the gates together went unbelievably well. I clinker-built them, like an old fashioned sailing ship. Well, like the garden gate that came with our house.
Hammering the nails in saw me sustain the only injury of the whole weekend – a blister from holding my finger out along the hammer's neck to achieve greater accuracy. I don't think I'm giving too much away about my identity by including a picture of my hand. Yes, I am ... a white, right-handed man.
Putting them up gave me cause for concern, though. I fear drills.
I have always imagined electrocuting myself by drilling into the mains. Imagine my surprise then, when a couple of years ago, I drilled into NOT an electrical cable, but a water pipe! At night. In winter.
Yes, we had to get an emergency plumber round who turned up about 1am, drain down the entire central heating system and clean up a lot of flooding.
Ah, happy days.
But it went fine – primarily because no one, to my knowledge, has ever installed a water pipe or an electrical cable inside a brick. Another handy tip – don't use a cordless for masonry drilling. You'll be there all day.
And I was so proud of my handiwork you know what I did? I sanded the tops down. Attention to detail much? Then I promptly hit myself in the ankle with the unsanded bottom of the gate, which I had cleverly mounted at exactly the same height as the middle of my Achilles tendon. And, like Victor Frankenstein, I cursed my creation.
It is often said that the men of my generation are pitiful children in adult bodies, who can't take care of the basic maintenance, construction and mechanical tasks that our fathers take for granted – and indeed, literally have to get their dads to do for them.
I blame school. No one ever told me to change a plug, but they did make me into a big ponce who knows more about the Second Empire of France than how electricity works.
I did have to get my dad to put in a new light fitting for me. But I did the second one, under his supervision. I have also made cement, laid a patio, boarded my loft, put in a drain, built a wall that is still standing after two years, thawed frozen pipes and identified and removed the source of a mysterious stain on the ceiling of Roger Jr's bedroom (a decomposing dead mouse). And I only stuck my hand through the ceiling plaster once.
Gradually, I am battling my forced exile to the world of the mind. I am reclaiming the material world, inch by inch, stone by stone, block by block.
Unbelievable.
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