In which our heroine engages in some DIY (demented, infuriated yelling)

One of the joys of singledom is being able to do all your own household repairs and alterations!

Did that come across as sarcastic? It did? Jolly good!

I HATE DIY!

I don't WANT to do it myself! I want some other poor sucker to do it for me!

When I first left home at the tender age of 19 my Grandfather was still strong and fit enough to do anything that needed doing (just another reason for my adoring him so), but over the last few years he has become very frail, Parkinson's Disease and my Grandmother's death has sadly left him just a shell of the man he used to be.

Which means that now, unless I happen to have a boyfriend who is handy and willing with a toolbox, I have to DIM (Do it myself ... how appropriate that the acronym for that is "DIM"!).

Now let me make it clear ... I CAN do DIY. I have my own toolbox and everything! And not one pink or glittery handled screwdriver in sight! My tools are the real deal. Proper hardware of the kind that makes grown men drool and stand in hardware stores for hour after hour (what's that about?). I've actually had guys compliment me on my toolbox, and a couple I even suspect kept the relationship going long past its sell-by date because of that fact alone.

I just prefer NOT to have to do DIY. I put jobs off for as long as possible.

Recently I've had a couple of minor leak issues, one in the toilet cistern and one under the kitchen sink ... all I can say is thank God for mastic!

A while ago I bought some lovely new curtains for my bedroom and a metal curtain pole. Then I realised the curtain pole wasn't going to just magically attach itself to the wall (where are all the poxy DIY fairies when you need them!) and so it got put in a cupboard and determinedly ignored, a combination of work and insomnia being my favourite excuse for not having put them up yet.

But now I have nothing to do. I have no excuse. So today I gritted my teeth and resolved to put the bloody thing up if it killed me (yeah, keep reading).

I got my trusty toolbox out, cleaned all the dust and cobwebs off of it, and then found all the tools I thought I might need for the procedure, laying them out on the window sill like an operating theatre's table. (This always amuses me ... I like to imagine I'm a brain surgeon or something and say things to imaginary colleagues like "Hammer and chisel , please Nurse Ratched" and "We have to hurry! I think we're losing him!" hehehe). I surveyed the curtain pole, and then the window area, considering the job at hand (I just realised, this whole post is a double entendre DREAM for the smutty minded ... oh well, the comments should be interesting if nothing else ... ).

I figured that in theory it should be fairly straight forward. All I needed to do was fix 3 brackety thingies to the woody bit on the wall over the window and then Bob's yer uncle, voila ... etc etc.

I started strongly. I measured the woody bit, found the half way point and marked it with a pencil, this is where my middle brackety thingy would go. Then I measured equal distances on either side of this middle thingy and marked them ready for the other two brackety thingies.

Easy!

Then I fell off the stepladder.

S'ok ... I wasn't hurt (much) it was just a momentary lapse of concentration on my part. I was embarrassed more than anything, I could tell the b@$tard cat was hiding a smirk by pretending to lick its paw.

Then, armed with my trusty braddle and a brackety thingy, I made all the preliminary holes for the screws to bite into.

This was going swimmingly!

I got the screws out of the curtain pole box and found a screwdriver with the right head (Handy Andy eat your heart out!). Ascended the stepladder again ... looked at the screws.

They were huge! I mean seriously big ... you could have screwed an overweight elephant with a thyroid problem to the wall with these screws. They'd even provided rawlplugs!!! Now I'm no expert (clearly), but that seemed a little unnecessary to me ... I was only mounting a curtain pole, for the love of Bob!

Then I realised the screws were too deep to just screw into the woody bit on the wall over the window.

Feck!

Now, I have an electric drill. And I can use it ... if I'm drilling into cardboard or chalk or something similarly soft. But I'd tried to drill into these walls when I first moved in and it simply wasn't going to happen. The walls are made of steel and I'm a total weed with little or no strength in my arms. If you imagine trying to drill into a diamond using only a paperclip you'll start to get some idea of what I'm talking about.

But I had a cunning plan! I rooted around in my toolbox, I never throw things like screws away and as a consequence the bottom of the toolbox was a bed of odd screws and nails and ... er ... toothpaste caps ...!! I managed to find 6 similarly sized screws and gave a little hoot of victory. I could do this, dammit!

It worked like a charm. Except for having Phillips head screws and a flat-edged screwdriver. Back to the toolbox. Yay me for having Phillips head screwdrivers too!

I got all those brackety thingies on the woody bit on the wall over the window in under 10 minutes.

Yay!

Then I slipped down the stepladder.

S'ok, I wasn't hurt (well my pride was ... the effing cat gave me a look that clearly said "God! You're such a retard sometimes!") ... grazed my shin a little which stung, but I was a big brave girl and didn't cry (much).

All that was left was to attach the actual pole to the brackety thingies, which I managed after nearly smashing the lamp shade and the window (hey! manoeuvring an 8ft pole isn't easy you know!! ... and yeah, yeah ... that's what he said. Stop giggling!).

At last it was done! I stood back and admired my handiwork.

Then I realised that all the curtain rings were trapped at one end of the pole.

#@%$£&*#


If I ever meet the man of my dreams he better have a PHD in DIY or I'm NEVER putting out!