I was at Di’s this morning when there was an unlikely knock at the door as I was getting ready. It turned out to be her Dad (Jim) who was kindly dropping her in a birthday present. I then heard him enquiring whether I was in the vicinity because……………….he wanted a hand starting a chainsaw. Shit! This was a man’s job, and if he couldn’t do it, how was I supposed to be capable? It was obviously a test designed to expose me as utterly hopeless.

Jim explained that because he was knocking on a bit (70) he didn’t like to do it, as it had a nasty habit of “kicking back.” Great, that was all I needed, a chainsaw that “kicked back”. To make matters worse, Jim informed me that Brian (Di’s Brother) normally started it first time. For those of you who don’t know Brian, he is one of those practical blokes who could make a garden shed complete with veranda out of pallets from a builders merchants yard, or a replica of the Severn Bridge out of Swan Vesta matches. On our first few dates Di told me all about his brilliant handyman skills, which lead me to hating him until I actually met him.

Anyway, I arrived at the cottage (pictured above) where Jim was working, and immediately had a vision of what would normally happen with Bob armed with a temperamental chainsaw. I would pull the handle, the chainsaw would “kick back”, my arm would be ripped from my body, and fly in to the Wallop Brook, Jim would drown trying to retrieve it, and the sparks off the chainsaw would land on the newly thatched roof, and the cottage would burn to ground. No one would be shocked and in truth, if Jim knew me better, he wouldn’t let me near the bloody thing.

Then a miracle happened, after two splutters, and a fiddle with something called a choke, I started it. Yes me, Bob Lethaby, started a chainsaw without any alarm. So apart from calling some ducks geese, I still had my masculinity intact, and Jim even suspected that I knew what I was doing, and that this was no fluke.

I didn’t have much to get on with today, and I felt a bit guilty leaving Jim to tackle this monstrous willow tree that had fallen in the garden, surely I could be of some assistance couldn’t I? Then it dawned me that no I couldn’t actually, I had got away with disaster once, and there was no point pushing my luck, so I wished Jim luck, gave a cursory glance to the ducks, and left the cottage feeling ever so briefly, like a rufty tufty bloke.