D.I.Y '“ I just can't nail it down

Spending time you’ll never get back doing a botch job on your house that will end up costing treble by the time you’ve paid a professional to fix your mess and then do the work you should’ve paid them to do in the first place.

Some people – perverts and masochists if you ask me – love it.

Sensible types, like yours truly, hear the theme tune to Laurel And Hardy, Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em and ChuckleVision on a permanent loop through their heads at the sight of a hammer.

During a recent storm, some felt got blown off our shed roof. Big whoop! The whole thing could’ve blown into the next street and it would’ve taken months for anyone to notice. During the cold and dark winter months, our expensively remodelled (by somebody else) garden is nothing but an outdoor toilet for our dog Walter and I’m sent out on poo patrol every few days to bag it and bin it.

But the boss, who needs little or no excuse to whip out her extendable steel tape measure, was worried the roof would leak and the bikes nobody has touched in four years might get wet.

So off she went to some nightmarish DIY barn and bought some felt, cut it to size, borrowed next door’s big ladder and then looked at me all doe-eyed expecting some help. Sorry, lady. There’s more chance of me giving birth than rolling around on top of a shed with a hammer in one hand and some nails in the other. And anyway, A&E departments are busy enough without dealing with some nimrod who’s nailed his fingers to a roof.

So while she climbed up four whole rungs, I held the ladder while she methodically banged in a kilo of nails.

And afterwards, as we returned the ladder over the fence, I stepped in one of Walter’s deposits the size of a boxing glove that he’d hidden in a herbaceous border, in a pristine pair of white Adidas Superstars.

Still, we all have our talents. The boss and daughters #1 and #2 come home to a dinner cooked from scratch every night, whether they like it or not. And in the last week they’ve had chicken balti, korma, roast dinner and shepherd’s pie.