Spent the last two days working for my good mate Phil The Builder, decorating an extension he'd just finished building.

The customer popped in this evening to review the work, just as I was packing up. After the usual pleasantries and positive comments, he said "I thought there was supposed to be coving up in here...???"

First I'd heard of it, and not great timing, just after the room had been fully decorated!

Oh well, tomorrow (as they say) is another day...

I've done a couple of coving jobs recently, which prompted me to put cyber pen to cyber paper once more...

Before actually fixing coving to the wall/ceiling, it's a good idea to put a few pencil marks along, so that you know where the top and bottom edges should be once they're fixed. Otherwise you can work your way round the room, to find your last piece doesn't meet up with your first piece...

On the day in question, I knew I had to put my pencil marks 83mm down from the ceiling. Unfortunately, I also knew I was going out to see a band that evening to celebrate my birthday. One of their best-known songs is a little tribute to the music of the 1950's entitled "78rpm". So all day I had "78rpm" going round my head. You can probably guess where the pencil marks ended up...

But it doesn't end there. On the way to the gig, I was recounting the tale to my friend/chauffeur, who told me of a friend of his who had bought coving to put up himself.  Noticing it was paper-covered, he assumed (for reasons known only to himself) that this was some sort of protective wrapping, and decided that it needed to be removed. Again for reasons known only to himself, he decided that the best way to accomplish this task was to lay all the lengths of coving in a bath for half an hour. He returned to find what can best be described as plaster soup with soggy paper croutons...

Happy birthday to me! Yes, two years on, and the odd job man is still doing jobs and being....well, male and odd. Round about the time of my business's birthday, I was invited to attend a family wedding, and had to wear a suit. After two years of not wearing one, I was initially pleased that I still fitted into it! But actually, it wasn't the greatest experience ever. I mean, the wedding was fine, but wearing a suit? Nah, don't miss that at all. Which prompted me to come up with the top 10 list of things I don't miss about being in an office:

1. People who have spent too much time on assertiveness courses (actually, I still come across one or two of them, but now I have the freedom  to just laugh at them and walk away!)
2. School bullies dressed up as business leaders. You know who you are. Or if you don't, it's probably because nobody dares tell you, 'cause you're such a bully!
3. Suits. And cufflinks. They look great, but is it worth the effort?
4. Office politics.
5. Buffet lunches - and people who organise meetings at lunch time just so that they can order a buffet lunch. Taste great, but there's a limit to how much mayo I can eat and still get through the door!
6. 256 emails a day, especially those from people in a completely different time zone who then complain when you don't reply immediately.
7. So-called managers who were spookily like the chap in "The Office"...
8. Having to be nice to people whose power-to-intelligence ratio was way out of line...
9. The "why is your office is 0.2 square metres bigger than mine?" mentality.
10. Watered-down armadillo excrement being described as coffee...

Just a quick tip. Don't try carrying sacks of dark yellow building sand that have been left out in the rain, while wearing pale cream shorts.

Embarrassing yellow stains all down the front.

Not nice, and takes a lot of explaining....

Well, having written a post for this blog entitled "Fools rush in...", I couldn't resist the title!

Weird and illogical behaviour (captain). I noticed it yesterday, as I was putting some new vinyl flooring down in a kitchen.  Once I had it done, I had various other odd jobs to do in and around the kitchen, and noticed that I was tip-toeing around the room nervously. Then I noticed the customer doing it too. Why? Sooner or later it's going to be walked on "as if it's been there forever", so why tip-toe on it to start with?

Then I remembered that I do exactly the same thing with patios - even weeks after they've been finished, I still tread on them like Grasshopper walking across the rice paper (for those who remember "Kung Fu" from the 1970's!).

"Hi. My name's Rob, and I'm a painter, decorator and handyman based in Emmbrook (near Wokingham) in Berkshire."

That's the opening line of text on my home page. Not very imaginative I know, but it's a scene-setter, lets people know who and where I am.  If I'm not what they're looking for, they can surf on elsewhere without wasting too much time.  Or so I thought...

One day last week my phone rang. The conversation went something like this:

Customer: "Hello? Is that the Odd Job Man? I'm sorry, I don't know your name, but I've just been looking at your web site, and wondered if you might be able to help me".

Me: "Yes, this is the Odd Job Man. My name's Rob (thinking - I'm sure it says that on the web site, but if not I'll update it when I get home). How can I help?"

Customer: "I don't know if this is the sort of thing you do, but I have some flat pack furniture to assemble and some pictures to put up. Is that the sort of thing you do?"

Me (thinking - I'm sure it says that on the web site, but if not I'll update it when I get home): "Yes, that should be no problem. I could probably fit that sort of thing in on my way home if I finish early one day."

Customer: "Oh great. Whereabouts are you?"

Me (thinking...well, you know by now what I was thinking!): "In Emmbrook."

Customer: "Where's that?"

Me: "In Wokingham. Whereabouts are you?"

Customer: "In Balham, South London. I suppose I'm a bit out of the way for you, then..."

Me (thinking - you openened this conversation by saying you'd been reading my web site!): "I'm sorry, I think it may be..."

You know how whenever you unpack anything that needs assembly, it always tells you to check you have all the parts before you start? Well here's a good example of why it's so true!

I had a nice little "Friday afternoon job", fitting a cat flap for a lady just round the corner. Eager to get home for the first beer of the evening, I was about to cut a great big hole in her back door, when I thought I'd better just check the instructions. Instruction 1: check all the bits are in the box. OK, there are only about six parts, plus a handful of screws. Shouldn't take long... except there's one piece missing!

If I'd cut the hole, she'd have been left with a 10" hole in her back door all weekend, which even in good weather isn't ideal. As it is, I can reschedule the job for next week, once she's got a replacement cat flap with all the bits.

Better safe than sorry!

My 5 year old son (name removed to protect the innocent) was helping me replace a door in one of the bedrooms in our home at the weekend (yes, I spent half the week hanging doors, and then half the weekend too!). Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Does it look like the door's a good fit now?

Mini-me: There's quite a big gap at the bottom daddy.

Me: That's OK - that's to make sure the door doesn't scrape on the new flooring.

Mini-me: I suppose if the gap at the bottom is too big, we could always cut a bit of wood off the top of the door and stick it on the bottom....

Hardly dare mention it. As soon as I do, the weather will realise its mistake and start persecuting me again! But hasn't the weather been great this week? Can hardly believe it was only a couple of weeks ago that the schools were shut for the snow, and yet here I am, working outside in the open air, building a patio...

...and feeling great! Nothing like it. Out in the fresh air, doing hard physical work, a great sense of achievement...and getting paid for it.

The weather had better hold!!!