The Shed

If I didn't blog much yesterday, it's because I was putting up a sodding bike shed...

The parts have been sitting in the garden for a week and we’ve been glaring at each other all weekend muttering vague threats. I didn’t buy the bike shed. It’s not my bike shed. I wouldn’t want a bike shed. However, it fell to me to put the bloody thing up and, since I was having an otherwise crappy day, I thought I might as well write off Monday by doing this long overdue task.

There’s nothing like putting up a shed in hot weather, especially when the instruction leaflet is written according the rule book issued by the Institute of the Vague and Thereabouts. None of the pieces had labels or names so it was a matter of interpreting rather than following the instructions. The biggest problem I faced was that once I’d erected all four walls, I discovered that to open the doors I needed a key. Where was the key? After about half-an-hour’s search, I discovered that the key was stapled to the inside of the doors. That’s on the inside of the shed I’d just erected. Cue my having to crawl under the shed whilst propping it at an angle on the wheelie bin…

Thankfully, the shed is now constructed with only two pieces of wood left over. I’ll be damned if I know where they go or what they’re for but I guess I’ll discover that when the bloody thing collapses.

However, it was a good day’s work and with only the following injuries:

• One large claw hammer mark on left knuckle.


• Small dent in side of head where I walked into the roof.


• Right toes bruised after dropping roof on my foot.


• Left elbow badly grazed.


• Splinter in right index finger.


• Numerous patches of irritated skin from the highly poisonous wood preservative.

I have to say that for a man who failed woodwork at school (I accidentally nailed my mug rack to the desk so when the teacher came to inspect it, he could actually lift it up) I think the shed looks as good as a shed should look when it’s held together with about two and a half thousand nails. Not to buy some anti-tamper screws and install some lethal security measures to stop the bikes getting nicked by the local Griffs and weirdos.