In common with oh so many people (everyone?) I've picked up my share of offers from group-buying site Groupon with some deals being better than others. Why most of their current deals seem to revolve around facials and dental surgery I don't know. Anyway sometimes a really good offer comes along - like the chance to enjoy a cut-price course at The Goodlife Centre. Now I didn't know these people from Adam but I liked the eclectic nature of their courses and the fact that I could potentially walk to them from work if I chose wisely. So I played my hand and signed up for a 4-week Basic DIY course.
Now like any other red-blooded male I do have my share of power tools and some of them have, believe it or not, been used in anger. So it's fair to say that I know my way around a toolbox. On the other hand I'm always willing to learn, and make a fool of myself, if that's what it takes and with the global apocalypse around the corner a few practical skills might come in handy. Sure you might say that if this is the future then I'd be better off learning how to skin a rabbit and build a lean-to from twigs but I've done both of these once already and once was enough!
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| Hopefully not the outcome! |
So what did we do this evening in this first week? Well we got off to a leisurely start by getting to know each other and our home improvement experiences - however limited they might be! At first it seemed that I was to be the token bloke but as it turned out all this indicated was that the women were more likely to arrive on time! In the end the group was split pretty evenly and we got down to banging in some nails, experimenting with a nail punch and generally trying a few things out.
After this it was on to the various types of saw with the promise of getting our hands on the cordless jigsaw at the front of the class; it made my 'el cheapo' jigsaw look like a poor relation I can tell you. On the hand-saw front though I don't mind saying that I quite liked the look of the Gentleman's saw (a type of backsaw it is) and in practice it felt easy in my hand. I can almost see why 'dads' end up with a shed full of tools, you know, and yet still can't cut square through a plastic pipe! It seems that there's no 'secret' way to do this properly either just lots of practice. Darn it.
A pretty good start then; I'm looking forward to next week already.