This week, I have been mostly creeping around trying to be quiet! "The Emma's" been on nights all week, so between unsuccessfully dodging the rain showers, I've been trying to keep quiet. The problem is, the quieter I try to be the more noise I seem to make. Sometimes I think it would be better if I tried to be noisy, it would probably be quieter! Anyhow, as I'm incapable of being quiet there's only 2 real options; Option 1 has to be to go out. If I'm not in, I can't be making any noise, right? As such, I've managed to rack up a fair few miles of running and walking during the week and got more than a bit damp on more than one occasion. The lockdowns obviously limited my scope for travel, but having consulted the local map, I've spent a bit of time following random local footpaths that I've never been down before. I've not made any major discoveries, but I have been surprised on a couple of occasions to spot things that I've never noticed before when traveling from a different direction. It's surprising how different the world around you looks when seen from different directions and it's amazing how many little things of interest are hidden away behind hedges, trees or the landscape, that you miss when your moving faster than walking pace. Of course the other option for staying out of the way is to take a leaf out of every old man's book and go and hide in your shed, so when I've not been out in the rain that's where I've been. It's a win win situation, not only am I in the good books for being quiet, but I've been being productive too. There's nothing better than standing back at the end of the day with a feeling of satisfaction and saying "I made this". A couple of years ago I stumbled upon someone carving spoons and thought "that looks like fun". Ever the tinkerer, and knowing that whoever has the most tools when they die wins, I acquired a couple of wood carving knives, thinking that at some point in the future I'd give it a go. As with most things, other projects and life have got in the way and they've been sat, unused, waiting patiently, for their day in the spotlight. Whilst hiding in the shed waiting for the glue to dry on another project this week, my eye fell onto the carving knives and I pondered using some of the scraps of wood left over from the Christmas present make-a-thon for a bit of spoon carving. Traditionally, spoons are carved from wet (green) wood, which tends to be easier to cut, but the glutton for punishment that I am, I gave it a go with what I had anyway. Like most things I do, I'm certainly not going to win any prizes for quality workmanship, but considering these are my first attempts, I'm pretty happy with the outcome and more importantly I've still got all my fingers and toes! Nothing special there then and the dry woods pretty hard to carve. But, like everything in life, if you don't try you'll never succeed and most importantly I had a bit of fun making them and learned a lot along the way. I'm intrigued now to see how different woods turn out and if green woods easier to work. There's a few bit's of Hawthorn to come out of the hedge on the allotment so I'll give that a go if I get time and report back and keep my eyes open for something more suitable while I'm out and about. In between other things I knocked up this little desk tidy at the start of the week, mainly as an experiment to see if I could get the long edge joints to work using just hand tools. I could have run the 45 degree edges through the table saw, but A) it's bloody noisy and I'm trying to be quiet. B) It's only cheap and not very good. C) I'd have to drag it out of the garage and set it up just for 10 minutes work and D) It's far more satisfying to do it by hand. Anyhow, it proved my concept and showed that I could get an acceptable joint by hand (and it's given us somewhere to put the pens) so I've made a start on my next brilliant idea. I'll leave you to try and guess what it is, although at the rate I progress you might be waiting a while to find out. And that's as far as I've got for the moment, as you'll see below, other things have taken priority, but, I'll get this finished off next week and you can see if your guess is right! In other news, and more importantly what I'm supposed to be doing, I have managed to make a little bit of progress on project patio. A couple of hours in between showers at the start of the week gave me the opportunity to get a few more bricks laid. And then a couple of hours with the whacker plate Friday afternoon after Emma got up got us a bit further on. After a wet start and a bit of early morning running, Saturday afternoon turned out ok and with the forecast looking good for Sunday it seemed sensible to make hay whilst the sun shone and crack on. I must admit that I'm pretty happy with how that's looking. I've had the idea in my head for long enough that I knew what I was aiming for, but now it's actually starting to take shape it's reassuring to know that it's going to look ok. Just don't turn around! Next step, start working towards the gate. Unfortunately most of that lot's in the way so I'm going to have to do a bit of rearranging and shift another couple of van loads of the old slabs up to the allotment, where I'm going to use them for paths before I can go any further.
All productive, satisfying and rewarding stuff and I'm saving a fortune on Gym fees!
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Paul PerrattOld enough to know better, young enough to still feel invincible, stupid enough to keep on trying the same thing again and again. Cyclist, Gardener, Runner, Hiker, Cook, Woodworker, Engineer, Jack of all trades and master of none, Anti social old git and all round miserable bugger. Archives
March 2024
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