I have always been cack-handed. In my family this has long been accepted as fact. The other day my mother saw a photo of me holding a shovel. She laughed for quite a long time before pointing at the screen and giggling, “He doesn’t know which end to hold it!” I was holding it by the handle. But this illustrates how alien the sight of me holding a shovel is. If I so much as glance at my bike with a mind to inflate the tyres or tinker with the brakes, my father breaks out in absolute hysterics. He folds himself in half, howling, tears rolling down his red face until, finally, he calms down.
What makes me so inept in the manly domain of cordless drills and spirit levels? It is a mystery. Whenever I take hold of a screwdriver or a hammer it’s as if they’re coated in an undetectable substance that renders my hands useless. I am guaranteed to drop the tool I’m holding several times. Almost as likely, I will lose something integral to the entire operation. A bolt, a screw, a washer. As long as it’s absolutely indispensable, I’ll lose the fucking thing. Then I crouch and squint while I rip my fingers to shreds, my back aching from the awkward angle I’ve landed at, my forehead sweating more from irritation than exertion.
I once watched my cousin’s dad inflate a football with a spare car tyre and a handful of wire wool. It was the closest thing to real magic I’ve ever seen. My younger brother throws piles of bricks onto his shoulder like an Indian teenager in a Youtube compilation. It’s baffling to witness. These are the manly abilities of manly men. Those angels with entire tool-kits to spare, who can unblock a sink with nothing more than a bag of salt and a bucket, who can identify an engine problem by the noise it makes. God bless them all. That just isn’t me.
A sedentary childhood, poor posture, and absolute uninterest in anything resembling manual labour have combined to leave me ill-equipped for the handy-man position. For the longest time I considered this nothing more than a mild inconvenience. If I can’t do it, someone else will. The mentality of an eight-year-old that has managed to withstand the test of time, albeit in slightly diluted form. The absurdity of this position finally became clear when I got it into my mind to walk the circumference of the UK, islands excluded.
This mammoth undertaking is still just that, a notion, an aspiration, a goal. Right now, the biggest obstacle to achieving it is not walking great distances, or being alone for long periods, or giving up home comforts. It’s this: how am I supposed to survive in a tent on the British coast for months when I have no idea how to even set a tent up? I dread to think how long I would struggle with the poles and holes before giving up entirely and sleeping on the wet ground in my sleeping bag. I assure you, that’s what would happen if set out tomorrow.
There are other considerations. Where can I camp? How long can I camp there for? Should I carry a portable stove? How often can I buy food along the way? Etc. Etc. All of that is easily addressed with a long Google search and a few test runs. However, what am I to do about my born inability to put square pegs in square holes? That could take a lifetime to address.
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