New Year Resolution: Work More With My Hands

DIY projects, gardening and caring for the loved ones in my life are a good counterpoint to decades of using only head skills.

- Chua Mui Hoong

It's Tuesday, my so-called "writing day" when I usually don my thinking hat and start work on my weekly column for The Straits Times.

But the weather is perfect for working in the garden. My partner D is out digging up the garden bed with a young man who is helping us this month.

I'll be out in the garden in a bit, I told D, as I mentally postponed my writing to the following day. I donned my work gear: a high-visibility jacket, my work boots from Blundstone, the iconic Australian footwear brand, and my trusty gloves from Bunnings, the Australian DIY superstore.

D suggested I dismantle the chicken coop we had installed over a year ago. The coop was in the sun too many hours a day during the summer, when Perth temperatures go up to the high 30s deg C. We would move the chickens to the back of the house, where the orange, lemon and lime trees provide more shade. The entire garden would be redone. We would remove the raised garden beds, and repurpose the soil and pavers to use elsewhere around the garden. The plan is to create a garden with more native plants that would withstand the heat and drought of Western Australia's long summer months.

D had done most of the hard work of dredging, shovelling, digging, sawing and smashing, assisted by a succession of young people we offer free lodging to, in exchange for work. We've had young folks from France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and America, through our doors. I manage the back end, doing household chores, making drinks and sandwiches, and dip in and out of the physical work in fits and bursts.

ROLLING UP MY SLEEVES