7th March 2026
There was a mist in the valley, drizzle was forecast and I was planning to complete the shed.
Ryan took me to Wickes so that I could get the feather board I needed for the job.
I have always considered myself as a problem solver, and what I was faced with was a difficult area of the shed to reach. I didn’t have a proper ladder that would have made the job so easy, I only had a step ladder.
Most of the pieces of feather board I could reach , but as I got closer to the top it became impossible. I was unable to use the step ladder at all in the conventional way.
All I can say, and it would make a health and safety person faint, I laid the step ladder between two walls, albeit at an angle because the walls were at different heights.
That was a bit dodgy, even for me, because I only had the rungs to stand on.
Then my brilliance came into its own, I laid an old worktop on to the angled stepladder beam. This solved the problem of falling through the rungs, but not the angle. I then collected most of the offcuts and stacked them on the lowest end to raise the worktop to a much lesser angle.
Now I had a platform to reach the higher places.
As I was fixing the last of the feather boards, Mike walked up the path pushing his bike, he looked across at my “platform” tutting as he passed. I shouted to him to not report me to the health and safety police. I had no fear, Mike wouldn’t report anyone to any police.
I managed to finish the work without injury, all that is left is the door, it’s a bit ragged, and that’s my final issue. I will give that some thought, I have plenty of off cuts, I might try something creative.
Another Lifetime to go 