Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Real life | 11 January 2018

In 2018 I am going to drill, hammer and paint my way to glory

‘Not being rude, but I don’t think you should do any DIY,’ said the gamekeeper.

He had just witnessed me make chicken soup by liquidising a boiled chicken carcass then pressing all the wrong buttons on the liquidiser, so detaching the bottom of the jug from the jug rather than releasing the jug from the machine, sending a deluge of soup downwards on to the kitchen counter and floor.

Cydney was standing below, ever hopeful, so as the cascade of soup splashed on to the spaniel’s head she simply tilted herself to gargle down the rain of good fortune.

The keeper, who had popped in for a coffee, had been listening to me excitedly reciting my plan to finish the house myself by doing all the outstanding work bit by bit with my own fair hands, no matter how many years it took me.

I would drill, hammer and paint my way to glory, I told the keeper, finally sorting out my life for myself, with no help from anyone. No more Cinderella complex. No more male rescuers needed.

‘Right you are,’ said the keeper, then added: ‘So do you want me to drill that piece of plaster board in front of the loft entrance or not?’

‘Yes, obviously…’ I checked myself. ‘No. It’s fine. I can do that myself. Soup?’ I had swilled as much as possible into a pan. Waste not, want not. The keeper grimaced as I sloshed liquid chicken with my bare hands across the counter and into the pan: ‘No, thank you.’

Later, after I had cleared up the rest of the soup, which had leaked into every crevice of the worktops — at least my new kitchen smells homey — I hauled the piece of board into place in front of the corridor leading to the loft I cannot now afford to convert, and whose non-insulated roof consequently leaks cold air into the rest of the house, a cruel internal wind of failure.

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