Frissons

We get our kicks where we can these days. A tiny dance of joy when the strimmer starts at the first attempt. A surreptitious fist pump when the truck gets through another MOT. A silent cheer at finding glowing embers in Bertha's belly the morning after you forgot to fill her with logs before bed. So when David confessed to feeling a "frisson of excitement" on seeing the new shed in all its green clad, roof on, completed glory, I didn't bat an eyelid. Seemed to me like a perfectly good reason for a frisson. I can add a frisson of my own to this orgy of excitement in celebration of the fact that it wasn't me who had to crawl atop the 3 metre high timber frame to clad the roof. I had fully expected that it would be. It was never going to be David, whose sense of balance is on a par with that of a drunken, vertigo suffering, one legged ape sat on the high end of a see-saw.

The knight in shining armour (fluorescent orange work jacket) who came riding in from the east (in a car coming from Kent), was Andrew, David's brother-in-law. We shamelessly exploited him as an unpaid work force for a full five days. We have form for putting visiting family and friends to work in the name of "it'll be fun, it won't take long, we'll go to the beach as soon as we're finished" - "The Shed (can he fix it? yes, he can!)", "Help is at hand", "Sunny Easter" "All hands", "Hooray for cheap foreign labour", "With a little help from a friend", "Many hands make light work"... I could go on. As I said, we've got form.

Even as the light faded on short January days and the drizzle came down, Andrew toiled uncomplaining until the job was done and the shed was clad. He even knocked up some fine Yorkshire boarding on the side too. Indeed, so pleased was David with his and Andrew's boarding that as I took photos for this very blog he said "make sure you get a side shot", and "try taking one from inside with the light coming in between the boards". Now there's a man who loves his shed. I love it too and have demonstrated my love for it by wasting no time at all in claiming an area next to Trinny for "my stuff". Actually, I think we're going need a bigger shed. When are you next free, Andrew?