Sheds

Sheds, sheds, all kinds of sheds

where did that come from?

I think it might be to do with "Hair hair, all kinds of hair
Hair on your head, and hair down there" - good old Babette Cole.

Anyway...

... theres a great book, Men and Sheds, devoted to the art of "shedding". Wonderful photos and little thumbnail sketches of sheds and their men - what they do and what they keep in them. From the predictable - tools, workshops, beer etc. - to the less so - collections of bricks, snakes and lizards, milk bottles. From the almost-palatial to the bijou to the historic "grand design" to the nearly-derelict. The book has a few engaging thoughts about the significance of sheds as a refuge, hermit-hole, place of quiet. It also quite specifically sees "shedding" as a male rather than female pursuit.

Tch!

There is one photo of a "female" shed - because the photographer was both female and has a shed - but there was an accompanying disparaging comment about the net curtains she'd put in it. (well, actually, fair enough - net curtains - eeek!!)

"It has been said that a shed is to a man what a handbag is to a woman - both contain all the essentials for surviving in the modern world and in the same way that no decent man would ever consider looking in a woman's handbag uninvited, so no reasonable woman would dream of setting foot in a man's shed." (Blurb from Men and Sheds)

Well, I don't have a handbag and I don't intend to fill my shed with essentials for survival. So there. (And I don't see how a milk bottle collection is an essential for survival)

Here are some pics. of sheds not to be found in this mostly excellent book. These are proper, serious and very manly sheds.

That of my father:















and my brother-in-law:




These are sheds with windows, electricity and carefully labelled storage systems.

I expect my brother' shed is similarly serious and manly, I couldn't get a photo of it in time for this.

This is the shed at the end of our next-door-neighbour's garden - one of my favourite sheds in the world!
A Sikh family used to live there (next door - not in the shed, silly!) and if they had a big family party, they would stay up all night cooking in the shed. And invite us around to share the wonderful food.

Unfortunately its getting a bit racked and ruined now.

Here is our own proper manly shed stuff, such as we possess - under the stairs:



(we have to be very careful that the meter-reading man doesn't get his head cut off by falling saws)

and in our current outdoor "shed", which is small but not bijou, and mostly crammed full of guinea-pig supplies:


You see why I need an alternative, bijou and non-utilitarian shed?

Here are some other "interesting" links about sheds, isn't the world wide web truly a "phenomenon"?
Sheds I'd like
(probably not really)
Readers Sheds
(yes really)
Expensive sheds
(prices start at £4,245)
Dull Mens Club
(not much on sheds actually, but found whilst searching... Has irresistible links such as A History of Folding Chairs, The Duck Tape Club and Big Ben Cam)

It seems sheds have been linked not only to maleness, but to aged men, to depression (if men are separated from their sheds) to "New Blokism", to Men's Health and to Australia.

Apparently "Men have sheds because women have the castle". Indeed, is that right?

So, I wonder, are Mandy's shed, and my shed-to-be symptoms of women yet again taking over one of the last bastions of masculinity? (sane masculinity anyway. Shed-separation can apparently also contribute to dementia.... )

Are there any men out there feeling threatened by my shedding activities?

It has been suggested that "Women are spending too much time in sheds, and not everyone's happy about it". And that "CREEPING egalitarianism has knocked another rusty nail into the smoothly sanded timber of the male ego. The garden shed, once an exclusively male domain, is being colonised by women".

So I'm part of a world-wide trend. We women are a threat to the "mystical covenant" between men and their sheds.

Or is it just that we want to get out of the washing up too?


I think there might be a PhD dissertation somewhere in all this - for an old, dull, male (demented?) Australian person maybe.


Me - I plan to sit in my shed (with tassels) look at the garden and drink tea.

Or possibly, sometimes, G&T.