Shack-Whacky.

Title pinched from Canada…Nice one Tana!

As threatened, More (bang up to date this time) snaps published here. Hope you like them, I set up the scaffold tower special and everything.





So passed another weekend of what’s beginning to feel like engineering in wood, as illustrated by my first porthole surround, fashioned from six precisely shaped pieces of teak, and the fact that I am finding the 0.3mm imperfection in the join on the left of the circle immensely annoying. I have a suspicion I’m a little short-fused at the mo.
Eagle eyes may also spot the torn corner of the return lintel on the port side after we dropped a critically and immensely carefully shaped piece on the deck on Sunday morning, it’s fixable (requiring cutting out and fitting a patch before assembling the mitre, and planing flush after), but my, did the air turn briefly and deafeningly blue, then thundery quiet after it happened. This led to the introduction of a New Rule: Don’t fackin’ let go, Alright?
Indeed, getting all those raked window frames and all their compound angles to fit just so is providing just the right conditions for creative and colourful expletive practise.
Speaking of conditions I’m told we experienced temperatures of four below on Saturday night. This presented two new and interesting experiences for us. Firstly the propane bottle that fed our big space heater froze up and prevented sufficient gas pressure from getting to the burners, with the result that after 10pm we were all froze up too. Bed inevitably followed soon after. Secondly, on waking Sunday morning Mark and I decided to get inventive in our thermal solutions. In a process known as ‘donning the tramps underpants’ we took reams of newspaper and shoved it down our trousers all around our legs, where it remained for the rest of the day. It proved surprisingly effective and warm once I got used to feeling like a walking recycling bin.
So. Still not done yet, but next weekend it’s theoretically possible to get the window section screwed, glued and finally beaten.

Boatbuilders.

Part the first.

Becky has just had her operation, and is therefore laid up (all went well thankfully). She is so crabby and bored already that she's started going through the league of photographic records that currently clutter up our hard drive; and defining where they should actually be filed in real life if it weren't for the influence of me. When she's discovered one out of place I know about it because I experience ample botheration and earache. Anyway, from this noisy process gems are already appearing, so maybe headaches aren't so bad really. For example this photo here published. Maybe this should be the start of a daft series, a pre-emptive retrospective like. Here's Jan and I (without hair)- Love ja baby....