The title may sound like a toy tunnel for a toddler, but what I had to build wasn’t child’s play. It was a unique challenge that taught me a lot, and I genuinely want to build another to make use of my new skills. Luckily, my neighbour George, who recently retired after 40 years in the RAF Regiment, joined in to help – absolute legend!
What happened was, around 12 hours before being handed the instructions for a 14ft polythene (greenhouse-like) structure. Someone from YMCA Kirkcaldy, who I work beside as a volunteer, asked me if I would “help with the poly-tunnel tomorrow”. Now, being the helpful community-spirited volunteer that I am, I jumped at the chance to do something new and important. By the end of day one, we had the foundation’s post created, and I became the sole person responsible for the entire build. There I stood with fat instructions filled with paragraph after paragraph of text and diagrams of parts I’d never seen in my life. That night, I sat up past midnight studying the instructions to make sure every hour of the next day was used to make progress. I suggest that approach as part of starting preparation – study the instructions before starting, just as these instructions instruct us to do, actually…haha!
