How do you know how to do that?

People sometimes ask me how it is that I know how to do so many things...or at least how I know what needs to be done, even when I can't necessarily do it myself.

I don't know.

I'm very, very inquisitive. And very, very greedy when it comes to knowledge. I want to know things. And I want to try things.

There are some things that I have learnt on purpose:

Tiling the stairs

• My Granny Norton taught me to knit and sew with a machine. 
• My Granny Snyman taught me to crochet and helped me perfect my hemming stitch. 
• My Mom taught me to cook.
• My step-dad taught me to give a car a minor service (in the days of plugs, points, condenser and oil change - don't ask me to do it now!).
• My Dad taught me to dropkick and fight with my fists. He wanted a son, what can I tell you? These days, it's perfectly acceptable for a girl to play rugby and box. Not so much in the 60s!
• My friend Catherine taught me tiling so that I could do my stairs. 

Then there are other things I sort of learnt by osmosis. I used to watch my grandfather at work in his workshop, mainly because it was made of creosoted split poles, and I loved the smell. I don't know how I absorbed as much as I did, when another person might not have done so. Maybe because I wanted to?

I have sat and chatted with workmen who come to the house to do various tasks, sometimes working with them when a second pair of hands has been needed.

But a lot of it goes back to my earlier post about just assuming that 'it can't be that difficult, surely?' I sort of tilt my head to one side and think 'if I attach a doohickey over there, and connect the hypergrolium to the hyperdinglepuffy (my Dad's favourite two words), it should work'.

Knowing how to do something for yourself is very empowering. Even supposing - for whatever reason - you don't have the time to do it yourself, or you've broken your arm and you're physically not up to the task. If you have a knowledge of what can be done, you can talk confidently to the person who will do the task for you. You can make suggestions about treatments and options, and you can call their bluff if they try to bulldust you about how difficult and/or time-consuming a task is going to be. You can make sensible suggestions about colour or finish or whatever. Even though you're not doing the work yourself, you're not at anyone's mercy.
Today I've been thinking a lot about my lovely Granny Norton. The one who taught me to knit and sew.

An old Singer: an icon

She had a Singer sewing machine. Those black and gold ones, with the wasp-like waist. If I remember correctly, hers had a foot pedal and a foldaway handcrank, so you could choose which you wanted to use. Initially, I think I used the handcrank because it was slower and gave me more control. Then I progressed to the foot pedal.

I can remember sewing all sorts of things by hand in my early childhood, but the first thing I remember making on my Gran's sewing machine was a green T-shirt dress with side pockets. I remember the challenge of working with stretchy fabric (no stretch-stitch in those days). I remember doing top stitching in white around the neck and the pockets. I remember taking the dress back to boarding school and feeling very pleased with it.

I can only think that my Gran must have been very patient with me, because I'm sure I was quite inexpert to begin with. It would have been so much easier (resisting the urge to say 'sew much easier') - not to mention quicker - to just do the work herself. If she had done so, my dress would have been prettier, there is no doubt about that. But I wouldn't have felt the same sense of accomplishment. I wouldn't have worn the dress with anywhere near as much pride.

And I probably wouldn't cock my head and think 'how hard can it be?' quite as often as I do today.