DDIY

Before I come to an explanation of the title of this piece, I would like to explain that I have just been reading a report that states that in this country, more than 50% of women do their own DIY. I personally find this rather worrying and wonder if that is because it is an indication of yet another female incursion into the world of men, or, because of the fact that I am undoubtedly a knight in shining white armour, I worry about the harm that they might do to themselves.

Hence DDIY; Don't do it yourself (if you are a woman). Now I know that this might raise a few eyebrows, especially among the fairer sex who may have been waiting years for their better half to attend to the leaky tap, squeaky floorboard or other miscellaneous annoyance, not to mention putting right previous failed attempts to attend to the aforementioned items.

I have just been relaying some carpet that I put down in our cloakroom some months ago, full well knowing at the time, that it really wasn't quite right. At the same time I have been correcting a job in the same room done by a so called professional. We had a new suite installed a while back, which looked fine, but didn't smell so good. I eventually traced it to an improperly sealed waste pipe which was allowing less than pleasant fumes back into the room. So much for the professional. Perhaps women, many of whom now survive alone without a man, are also reluctant to call in the professional. Perhaps they are better off without them.

Wherever I feel I can, I prefer to do jobs myself. At least I know they will be done properly. Eventually. There are, of course, limitations to the skills of a former accountant, and the clever bit is being able to recognise what those limits are. Unfortunately, there are some tasks that I feel I have the skills for (basically because they often don't require much skill), but with advancing years, I have to accept that some jobs are best left alone. My wife is often the arbiter in such matters; I do now respect my back more when it comes to hard physical effort. I would not wish to imply from the previous few sentences, that heavy labour is necessarily unskilled. The two may go hand in hand.

My philosophy in the past was always "why pay someone else to do what you are perfectly capable of doing for yourself", and this has admittedly got me in a few awkward situations, like when I dealt with a squeaky floorboard by attaching it to a water pipe stupidly sitting beneath it. The real lesson I learned from that was, never remove a nail from a water pipe until the plumber arrives; especially if you haven't turned the water off first.

So to come back to where I started, DDIY (if you are a woman), (and probably, if you are a man). Most jobs that can be done at enormous expense by qualified tradesmen, can be done by the amateur if they do them often enough to pick up the tricks of the trade, and if they are prepared to put their hand their pocket and buy the correct tools for the job. By which time you could probably have paid for the job to be done anyway. The satisfaction level wouldn't be so great though, and at the end of the day I love a challenge.