There's a reason some of us do what we do

After gorging ourselves on the trappings of another Chrristmas dinner (not to mention the piles of leftovers) my Dad stayed down a few days this week to help with a backyard project designed to make the summer months more pleasent - a pegola.

Instead of forking out thousands of dollars to some money-hungry tradesman we decided to best way to do it was to build it ourselves - after all how difficult could it be? After several trips to the local Bunnings store, and one to the bottleshop to ensure the esky was well stocked, we began the first day's task of putting together the frame. My uncle (with his long limbs) was to come help with the roofing the next day so we knew we had a bit of a job ahead of us. After mulling over a few things, and a few tiny hickups we set to work. By around four pm (and only one beer each in - we'd been busy little bees) the frame was really starting to get some shape. We'd attached the second pole and were trying to work out how to support a long length of beam that would hold the frame in place. Looking around I came up with the idea of using the second rung of the ladder to hold the wood while we coach bolted it to the pole. The ladder held the beam at the perfect height and with much mutural back-patting we screwed it into place.

"I think that deserves a beer," my Dad said and a scooted over to the esky to pluck a couple of cold ones for our efforts. It was only upon looking up on my return that I noticed our mistake. See if you can spot it...



That's right, in our obsession to hold the beam up we'd forgot to slide the ladder out, bolting it into the frame. Luckilly after a bit of a giggle we were able to undo the screws and rectify the problem and I now have an attactive, ladder-free pegola area to enjoy. But it goes to show the reason why some us are writers and not handymen.