Things you're inexplicably good or bad at!

[JauntyJinty]

I was poaching some eggs the other day, and it always something I've found really easy. I hear people talking about how difficult it is to poach eggs but I dont get it - heat up the water, swirl it, drop the eggs in and a few minutes later hike them out again. First time I asusmed it was beginers luck, but I always seem to nail it. Also folding fitted sheets. Just get your fingers in the corners and fold the bloody thing - I don't see why people say it's hard.

but this isn't purley bragging - because I can't crack an egg properly to save my life! I had 2 eggs most mornings for years, so its not a lack of practice - but I very rarely get a nice clean break and no shell in the egg! I've tried all different techniques, on the side of the pan/bowl, on a flat surface, using a knife - none seem to work for me.

Got me wondering if other people have things that find easy that are supposed to be hard and visa versa

And before you ask, yes it is a slow day at work!

Guessing the time without a clock, phone etc nearby. No sense of direction, can’t remember why I am where I am half the time, but ask me what time it is and I’m suddenly useful.

I can poach the fuck out of an egg too. I'm also a good (i.e. safe) driver. I can strip an engine and service a car really well!

I'm terrible at housework. Just cannot be arsed. If I don't pay someone to do it, it doesn't get done.

Also dreadful with tech. I can just about cope with Apple because it's reasonably intuitive and mostly apps. But I seem to forever be signing myself out of accounts, forgetting passwords, having weird wifi or memory issues on my laptop. It's like the opposite of green fingers, but with devices.

I’m really good at untangling wires/ fairy lights

terrible at cracking an egg- always have to do it into a bowl 🙂

I'm very good at calculating what time to leave the house if I need to be somewhere at a certain time and have various things to do before that point. So if I'm meeting a friend for coffee at 3, but I need to go to the post office, nip into the supermarket and go and get petrol first, I will always know what time to leave the house to get all that done and arrive exactly on time.

It's a niche talent, I will admit.

Can't cook rice to save my life. Also can't whistle, blow up balloons or make nice cauliflower cheese.

Roast potatoes. Sometimes feel a bit like Sleeping Beauty being granted gifts by the fairies, and my gift was roast potatoes. Perfect every time, can’t fuck them up if I try.

Also parallel parking. Provided the space is as big as the car, I’m in there.

I’m no good at slicing bread though- give me a loaf and a bread knife and I tend to produce something more like abstract art.

Can't cook bread or curries.... At all.

But I can cook a good shakshuka, cake and chappati/tortilla

I am really good at backing school books in sticky back plastic. Perfect every time.

Sauces. I can make all sauces and gravies perfectly, whether I've made them before or not. Including the ones that a reputation for being "difficult." I don't make any of them often, so it's not a matter of practice. I just find them weirdly easy.

Conversely, I cannot stir fry at all, and I have practiced a lot. No matter what, everything ends up both burnt and raw.

Despite being an artist and quite handy to boot, I am appalling at pumpkin carving.

I can recognise most songs from the first couple of notes of the intro.

Me too for the time thing. Notice this as dh is dreadful at measuring how long things will take. Also good at remembering faces and names even if l only met them once.
But so bad at following a recipe. Even if l do everything perfectly step by step it never turns out the same as it's meant to. And really bad at exercise classes. Everyone goes right l go left! Can't do them as too awkward.

I’m shit hot at parallel parking

I’m very punctual 😂 I just can’t stand being late, my husband on the other hand just can’t seem to ever work out his timings so is late for everything. I can’t reverse into a parking space in a carpark between two cars.

Im excellent at cooking timings.

Can do Christmas dinner on my own and serve up easily all at once.

I can't do a cartwheel to save my life. Many people have tried, my legs just don't go up enough. DD seems to have inherited the affliction.

Good - recognising songs by hearing a few seconds. DH thinks we should go on The Hit List but admits I'd do all the work

Bad - changing duvet covers. Sheets, fine. Single duvets, just about. But double or bigger? There have genuinely been times where I've ended up inside the cover as well as the duvet. That's a joint job, or just DH on his own.

I am the most wonderfully clumsy eejit ever but ..

I can catch ANYTHING that enters my field of vision!

(Does anyone remember the early scene in "Awakenings" ?)

Ask me to throw, it will end up smashing a window or miles behind me

I'm really good at waking up for specific times. Even if we had to be up at 4am for something, I'd be awake on the dot.

I can slice bread perfectly.

I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag though. If I go to the doctor's, I'm perfectly likely to end up behind the desk with the receptionists after leaving the consulting room. I could drive somewhere 10 times and still not know the way. However, put me in any hospital, and I can find my way.

Very good with measurements, I just know if something will fit, very good sense of smell
Rubbish at tech

I can make a roux or a custard and bake almost anything. I can cook for parties, makes no odds to me if thes 2 or 22.

I can't untangle lights or find my way to a or b though no sense of direction.

My spatial awareness is out the park - I can tell just by looking at something exactly what will fit and how. I'm extremely good at parallel parking for this reason.

However, my sense of place is appalling - I have no sense of direction whatsoever and can get lost in my own house. My mother, on the other hand, is like a homing pigeon - I swear you could drop her in the middle of the Gobi desert without a map or compass and she'd be at her front door two days later.

I have a mental map of everywhere I’ve ever been. This summer we went to somewhere I went on holiday as a child (30 years ago) and I was able to navigate to the sea front and castle etc without checking the map.

People however all fade out of existence the minute I stop talking to them. I really try, before weddings etc I go through everyone who will be there so I don’t get stuck. My nightmare is people walking up to me in the street and starting talking. Work colleague? Neighbour? Cousin? Give me a hint.

Opening difficult-to-open jar lids. Its my speciality.

I'm good at remembering recipes - not on the basis of x grams for this and that, more on the basis of does such and such a thing look right.

My reasonably new DP has mentioned I never open a recipe book but always produce "recipe" type meals (ie not egg on toast).

Things I can do exceptionally well - sew, crochet, horse riding, driving, ski-ing, complaining - yes really! I always get a refund and usually compensation of some sort! Natural affinity with animals.

Things I cannot get to grips with or I am useless at - knitting, drawing/painting, roller skating, ice skating, swimming.

I was awful at maths all the way through school, for as long as I can remember. Failed every exam but I aced the coursework. Not a single GCSE or other qualification in maths.

I'm the director of finance for a small company and bloody good at it 😂