Without the help of either a man - or the instructions (instructions are for wimps) I created - WiFi!
No longer am I chained to the desk. I am free to roam where ever the mood and inspiration takes me. I feel like Elsa the lioness in 'Born Free' (who doesn't love a bit of Matt Monro?)
As someone who is prone to monumental stupidity when it comes to doing practical 'stuff' I feel like this could be a watershed moment.
So - as I move forward into a sensible and capable new dawn, I thought I should share with you my top five humorous DIY 'cock-ups' and moments of extreme plonker-ness from years gone by.
At number five we have - Alternative uses for a butter knife
The summer of 1989 was spent scraping 75 layers of different coloured paint from the door of a rented house in Oxford - with a butter knife. If nothing else it bought our the completer finisher in me. I then painted the door red - as a gift to the people I was renting it from. All I can say is that there were only 3 channels on TV in those days.
The butter knife made a re-appearance in the late 90's when I needed to assemble a futon, but didn't have a screw driver. So infamous is this episode, that it even made it into my dad's speech at our wedding.
At number four we have - Alternative uses for the scalpel in your school dissecting kit
I have a scar on my right knee from the '80's where I slipped while trying to trim the excess rubber from around the bottom of my pixie boot during a bout of DIY cobbling.
At number three we have - Alternative use for tooth paste
When I was traveling around the world trip, I ended up joining a group traveling from Bangkok to Singapore. The hotel where we met was a bit ....... what shall we say ...... tired. As I unpacked my toiletries, I dropped my jar of moisturiser into the sink - the bottom of which promptly dropped out. I was horrified, my L'Oreal was responsible for a gaping, fist size hole in the porcelain. I never realised pentapeptides were so heavy!
My immediate thought was that I was going to be charged for a new sink. But I was a backpacker on a budget. A new sink was equivalent to a trip swimming with dolphins or a jet boat ride. So I did what anyone would do ...... well maybe not.... I looked for something sticky. The only thing to hand was my minty fresh toothpaste so I set about grouting the sink back together.
Twenty minutes I stood there, holding my sink together waiting for the tooth paste to set. Which of course it didn't. As soon as I let go, the sink held together for all of 10 seconds. Just long enough for me to congratulate myself on my resourceful use of Colgate, before the bottom of the sink fell out again, but this time shattered into 1,000 pieces on the floor.
It was at that point I admitted defeat, phoned reception, made up a lie and was moved to another room.
At number two - Alternative use for a shoe
I was living in a rented flat in '97, when having watched one too many episodes of Changing Rooms, I decided to flex my interior design muscles and hide the nasty fitted wardrobe with some feminine floaty voile curtains. In the absence of a curtain track I hammered the curtain into the ceiling at regular intervals with the heel of my stiletto.
What no one told me was that the electrics to the central light ran across the ceiling just below the plaster. All it took was one poorly placed nail and - 'BANG' - then blackness.
Bugger!
I went looking for the fuse box and found the blown fuse. I then went looking for spare fuses. Of course there weren't any so I improvised and repaired the fuse with a bit of wire from the middle of the twisty things that come with polythene sandwich bags.
Yes I know that was very stupid - now - but at the time I was very pleased to have power and light restored. I think I replaced it with a proper fuse the next day. I'm sure I did .......
Did I?
Oooops!!!
And at number one - Alison's DIY guide to cleaning your carburetter
I've never been very good at following recipes, so how I thought I was going to follow a Haynes Manual and remove, clean and re-install the carburetter in my Vauxhall Chevette is a mystery.
Poor Connie Shove-itt (my car's alter-ego) had been spluttering and kangarooing for a while so I decided that action was required.
It all started rather well. Never one to read the instructions, I just went for it, had the thing out in a jiffy and gave it a good clean. It was just like playing 'Operation Game' which I'd always been rather good at.
Unfortunately, when it came to put the thing back, I had absolutely no idea what to do. In my haste to get the thing out, I'd made no mental record of what order to do things or what anything had looked like before my 'carburetta-dectomy'.
Far too late I resorted to the manual which made no sense what so ever and to make matters worse it had started to rain. I was getting wet.
It only took the offer of cake from my housemate for me to abandon Connie in the rain.
The carburetter stayed on a chair in the dining room (on newspaper of course) for a further three months before I finally admitted defeat and engaged a 'man' to put it right.
But those days are a thing of the past. I've married a man with a power drill and a fully equipped tool box.
I may be stupid - but I'm not daft!
<<Don't try any of the above unless you want to fry or bleed to death!>>
