Me and DIY

I have always been a reluctant participant in that pastime called "Do It Yourself"or more fittingly DIY, that all my friends seem so skilled and adept at. For they, as well as saving Hundreds of pounds in erecting and assembling all sorts of things from shelves to complete buildings outshine me in all DIY respects. Now it's not difficult to explain to you just why I am a reluctant participant, it's that pure and simply, I am just plain useless at it.

I recall times when I would try my hand at anything DIY, be it a job on my car or a small job at home only to discover I was missing a critical component or had run out of paint for the final window frame or a roll of wallpaper that would let me finish the whole room. So I stopped DIY all together only to be shamed back into yet another stressful and temper shredding "small job" in the kitchen or bathroom later on. I have had some successes though but they were often spoiled by forces outside my control, like the kitchen carpet tiles I laid only to have the cat decide to have a "dietary malfunction" and bury it with the newly laid bright red and grey tiles. Or then there was the £50 wall.. in emulsion terms! Oh, there are more, but too many to mention.

Well, DIY here in sunny Ibiza has been infrequent but none the less stressful. I have already mentioned in an earlier posting about the smell we had from the septic tank that thanks to an ex-pats Blog I was able to solve at a cost of €1 and some minor discomfort as a result of sealant being stuck to me rather than the toilet base.

There have been some small jobs around the house, changing a light fitting, a picture hung there or a repair to a chair here..... nothing big. Then this week we had a small problem in that we lost a small(but vitally important) piece of plastic down the drain of the wash hand basin in the bathroom. Now I had retrieved this item once before by removing the pipe under the sink, retrieving the item and putting everything back together without difficulty. So when the same thing happened over the weekend I had no problem deciding to do the job again expecting the it to take no longer than 5 minutes. This was not to happen as the vital missing component was not to be found where I had expected it and I was forced to reassemble the plumbing to its former state. This is the point at which the five minute job became a 2 hour ordeal of bad temper, cut fingers, strained muscles and massive dehydration! First of all I could not reassemble the small length of pipes into their former configuration nor seal the pressure joints to any sensible degree where they were water tight. In the end I called a plumber - a "fontanero"!! My wounds are healing, both physical and emotional and the leaks have stopped too and I am resolved once more to avoid DIY, at all costs!