The shed door groaned like it remembered me—and wasn’t pleased. Fair enough. I hadn’t opened it in months. A winter of wine and sunshine in Spain, and now here I was, back in Pickering, wrestling with a rusted padlock and a grudge.
I finally kicked the thing open and was met with that particular Yorkshire shed scent: damp wood, old varnish, and the faint suggestion that something once alive had definitely died behind the lawnmower. Hello, old friend.
Now, this wasn’t going to be one of those triumphant, “James rediscovers his love of tools” days. No. This was a “Where the hell’s my Phillips head gone and why is everything sticky?” sort of day. I found an old bird table I’d promised to fix last September. Might’ve been the September before, but who’s counting?
Anyway. I was halfway through convincing a spider to vacate my hammer handle when I suddenly—without warning—found myself thinking about solar panels. Like, full-on staring at the roof of the shed, imagining panels up there, buzzing quietly. Heat. Independence. A smug sense of futuristic smugness.
It wasn’t the Yorkshire drizzle that triggered it. It was Kev, of course. Bloody Kev. He’s got a place near Alicante and now reckons he’s off-grid royalty. Keeps banging on about this solar panel installer in Alicante he used—some mob called Xcel Energia. Says they were slick, fast, and didn’t even try to sell him a water filter or a goat. Which, in Spain, is pretty impressive.
He messaged me last week, full of beans, saying, “Mate, you NEED to do this. Panels pay for themselves. You’ll feel like Iron Man with a tan.” I said, “Kev, I can’t even find my own tape measure.” He ignored that. Sent me the link again.
Now I’m stood there in my knackered garden, holding a soggy bit of fence, wondering if the shed could go green. Or the roof in Spain. Or both. Could I run a kettle off the sun? Or at least power a telly and a mini fridge for cold beers? What if it snowed? Do the panels mind snow? Do I mind snow?
Somewhere in that mental spiral, I hit my thumb with a mallet and screamed so loudly a pigeon fell off the aerial.
Back to reality. Patricia brought me tea and that Look™ that says, “You’re not seriously drilling things again, are you?” I lied. Told her I was tidying. Which I was. In a philosophical way.
By late afternoon I’d fixed nothing, misplaced three things I hadn’t known I owned, and decided I was definitely emailing those solar people. Or maybe texting Kev. Or ignoring it all and fixing the bloody bird table instead.
We’ll see. Depends what turns up first—sunshine or the screwdriver I swear was in my hand five minutes ago.
