To my shame, I'm appalling at DIY and I have the scars to prove it, including a missing tip to one finger. Despite a year's woodwork at school, I'm simply hopeless, a danger to both the house and myself.
These days, I don't really attempt it, but our recent move has brought the dreaded word Ikea back into my life. I know assembling a flat pack is barely DIY, but things have gone wrong in the past. Always.
We needed some wardrobes, bookcases and a desk for the computer. I was beginning to wonder which bit of my body would have to be sacrificed next, when Mrs Hedges suggested that we go and have a look at the Prospect Auction Rooms in Alresford. There, in a freezing warehouse, packed to the rafters with objects of every possible taste, description and quality, we picked out different lots, from Edwardian chests to a mahogany sideboard.
Two hours later, after a few nods of my head, we'd got everything we wanted for less than £200. Back home, my drill and screwdrivers can remain in their cobwebbed shed as there's nothing to do and that, for me, is a very real measure of success.
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Evenley Wood Garden: 'I didn't know a daffodil from a daisy! But being middle-aged, ignorant and obstinate, I persisted'When Nicola Taylor took on her plantsman father’s flower-filled woodland, she knew more about horses than trees, but, as Tiffany Daneff discovers, that hasn’t stopped her from making a great success of the garden. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
