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I've been to Paris, Munich and Milan in recent weeks. Where were you?
The reason for my travels? Work! The result? Aside from all the work, mostly eating good food and drinking good beer. Schnitzel and Pilsner, a wonderful combination!
So what now? Lots of work, just without travel. And some greenhouse and workshop building.
Spring is coming! Kevin the kerria keen to flower. Frederick the forsythia wanting to put on a yellow display to compete. All the sedum poking out a great deal of growth. Most importantly, thanks to a little warmth after the prolonged cold snap, the tips of my garlic are just starting to break through the soil. Happy days!
No photos this time around due to a juiceless camera and restricted daylight hours.
Call back soon tho', hoping for some productive times...
Snow has hit London! Not really a surprise. Everyone's been predicting it for a while. Blaming it on the Russians though, which is a little unfair if you ask me. Not sure their silver nitrate cloud impregnation is responsible for this!
Here's a pic of one of the lovely yew trees in my front garden with a gentle dusting:
That's all for now...
Let me start with the good. Was a great weekend, got loads done! It is no longer sub-zero outside (for now). Went to the dentist this morning so have shiny gnashers. Was really sunny today. Got a little battered at kickboxing this evening but gave better than I got.The bad? It sucks being a Crystal Palace fan right now. Three defeats on the trot. Stupid game!
The Magnificent? Behold the base for my workshop created by Mr P senior and me on Saturday:
Really looking fwd to getting the structure up now. May have to wait a little while as I have a bunch of travel commitments at work in the coming weeks. In the great words of Benjamin Franklin, "He that can have patience, can have what he will". Pretty certain he wasn't talking about the card game...
Well, it seems that the cr@ppy weather struck in the wee hours. Positive - had an unexpectedly "free" day in the garden. Negative - was woken up half a dozen times by the fecking rain hitting the windows and I wanted to clean the kitchen today. But didn't!
So what did I do?
Went to Homebase with Mrs P to buy some (more) sand and cement for the workshop base. Thought I'd aggravate my minor hernia while there as well. Wanted to pick up some manure to mulch my borders with but Homebase were not playing ball so had to stop off at Squires instead.
Got home with said products and injuries, had lunch, then got to work. The soil on my land isn't the best quality. We're on heavy clay being so near the Thames, which is compounded by the neglect from which the garden has suffered for years in the hands of seemingly lazy gardeners. Don't get me wrong, I am often lazy and I consider myself a gardener, but I prefer not to combine the two! Anyway, all my veg are grown in raised beds cos of my soil issues. So, today I dug them over enriching them with a combination of shop bought manure and the contents of my compost heap. I wish "the heap" was able to generate enough material to feed all my beds but, alas, there is only so much peeling of vegetables two people can do in a year!
Following my veg plot preparation, for which I feel I am ahead of the game by the way, I got a little carried away with clearing the leaves from the borders. I was intending to let the leaves protect the borders from the frost for the entire winter but every time I moved a leaf, I uncovered another head striving for the little sun our winter days offer. I couldn't help but let my germanic tidiness get the better of me - before I knew it, all the leaves had been filed away into their alloted location. Good leaves!
Finally, thought I'd carve a spoon out of some ash. Got damn cold and dark again before I could finish it so I'll add it to the WIP pile and hope it gets finished soon.
Enjoyable weekend, but the cold and dark sometimes make me wish I was back here instead:
Still, South West London has its charms...
I've run out of nuts. I wonder if people sell nuts after Christmas!? I don't want no sale nuts tho'! Come to think of it, I wonder how long nuts last!? Not very long in my house, that much I know.
Mrs P and I had a productive day. We've planted up our cornus "forest" and put in a quickthorn hedge behind it.
This is our aim with the Cornus. This pic isn't mine, I couldn't be ar$ed to take a photo but found this one of the same variety on on nzplantpics.com. Should look pretty cool.
The azaleas and crocosmia also found their way into the ground. Lots of people consider crocosmia a weed but we have some wonderful Lucifer under our bay tree which I couldn't resist complementing with a couple of pots from the garden centre for a pound each. I then started some woodwork while Mrs P did a great job of digging out the area for the workshop. I was working with some ash and some hazel. The latter is very enjoyable to work with. Stole it from Mr & Mrs P senior's garden several months ago (is is still theft if the owner helps you take it?) but it hasn't dried out too much. I know this because my moisture meter arrived in the post from Axminster a couple of days ago! Hazel isn't the most interesting of woods to behold but is has a beautifully creamy texture. It got too cold and dark outside for me to finish my projects though, so it looks like I'll have to sneak in a couple of hours tomorrow, despite the predicted snow or hail storm.
We're both a bit knackered now, having a break before cooking dinner from the tapas recipe book Mrs P received at Christmas. Never cooked tapas before, quite excited...
Mrs P and I went to see grandpa Cyril shortly before Christmas. (Hello Cyril, if you're reading!) We were lucky enough to receive a gift of a turned bowl nutcracker. Check this out, it is a great invention:
As you can possibly see from the pile of shells behind the dish, I've been eating an awful lot of nuts of late, mostly because this tool is so much fun to use.
I hope world nut prices don't increase sufficiently for me to have to give up my new addiction...
The summerhouse come workshop has been ordered, paid for and delivered. It is only small but will serve the purpose wonderfully. Just need to lay that base and build the thing. It'll look something like this when it's built:
(this image is courtesy of diy.com, by the way)
Once it's built, I'm thinking of putting a bench along the back (the longer dimension) for mounting things like a pillar drill, lathe, grinder, scroll saw, vice etc. However, it is difficult to visualise the finished article while it's leaning against the fence in pieces.
I stopped off at a local garden centre/nursery at lunch today. They have a sale on their old stock and I managed to pick up some bargains. Mrs P and I have a border in the garden that is quite acidic and dry. We already have a couple of rhododendrons and azaleas which are doing well, but don't quite fill the space. So, for £3 each, I picked up four more azaleas. Browsing the rest of the plants I encountered another irresistible bargain... five golden cornus, each four foot tall... for a pound each. Same situation with some young quickthorn. I've always been sceptical of budget plants but if you look at hedging specialist websites, you'll find a lot of very cheap shrubs. It seems that the mark up in garden centres can be significant at times. Captive market of sorts I guess. So, once my workshop is built, I have some attractive hedging to frame it. Sweet!
I have rather a lot on at work right now so progress could be a little slow but please check back soon to see how I'm getting on...
Cold, cold, cold!Merry New Year everyone.
It has been soooo cold recently that it's been tough to find the motivation to head out back to do much woodwork. I was lucky enough to receive a couple of new drills for Christmas - a Bosch hammer drill for all my DIY needs and a good old-fashioned hand drill which is great at performing intricate and accurate work.
So what does this great new year have in store for me? Well, first things first I need to build some sort of outbuilding to call my workshop. I've narrowed the list down to a few options and need to measure them up properly. Then I need to enlist some troops to help me lay a base and build the thing! In my head, my workshop is the gateway to being able to go from woodworking when the elements and daylight permit to woodworking whenever I want. Looking forward to sharing my progress with you.
The garden is currently looking pretty sad. There are a few little rays of sunshine poking up their heads among the frosty leaves. The mahonia is still thrusting its yellow arrows towards the sun, there a little clouds of blossom on the viburnum, the cornus are all glowing their winter finest, the heads of the sedum have been emerging since the first frost back in October and most importantly my japanese onions are romping away.
"Resolutions?" I hear you ask. I've never been a big fan of new year's resolutions but have always tried to make an effort to improve in one or two areas around the January time frame. So here goes:
1) Obvious one first: drink less - it costs too much, ain't great for the liver and somehow makes valuable time disappear
2) Quality time with quality people
3) Learn to combat my impatient streak
4) Replace some of my tiger energy with some swan energy, possibly add in a little sloth energy but not feel guilty about it
5) Stop blogging at 1 in the morning while drinking whisky
By the way, sorry that my posts have been rather devoid of photos of late. Purely laziness on my part. If you're interested in stimulating other senses, please do visit Mrs P's blog:
http://thedomesticnovice.blogspot.com/
Happy reading...
Hey, where have you been?
Around.
What have you been doing?
Stuff. Working (the paid kind) quite a lot. Doing a good bit of wood stuff on the weekends tho'.
What sort of wood stuff?
Mainly experimenting with shapes that make good jewellery items and learning about finishes on wood - oils, sealers, waxes, elbow grease etc. There's only so much grease you can get out of one elbow, however! Oh, and I carved some nunchucks out of ash.
You gonna put a proper post together any time soon and share any of your new knowledge?
Yeah, alright, I'll get round to it. Hopefully the christmas break will allow me some time to finish some items and take some snaps.
So why are you posting at 4 in the morning? Got no life?
It's not 4 in the morning, I'm in California right now. Mostly business, a little pleasure. Haven't been over here for about 15 months so it's a welcome visit. Getting my fill of weird sh!t on [adult swim] and getting fed up with people who work in American shops asking me if they can help and proceeding to tell me about every offer they currently have. I'm surprised I have ever bought anything in the States, the continuous pestering has rather the opposite to the desired effect on me!
California, nice! That must be a pleasant change from the miserable British weather.
You'd think wouldn't you? Started off OK but got freezing and rainy today.
Oh, poor you.
Well, you did ask!
So what next?
Few more days in Cali, then head home to see my much missed wife. Got the whole Christmas and New Year period off work so will hopefully get some jewellery pieces finished ready for photographing, modeling and perhaps even selling...
Hello!
Yep, been a while hasn't it?! Alas, I have returned to work and can no longer dedicate all my working hours to wood and garden stuff but, as I stupidly didn't take out one of those self-paying mortgages, the money is rather welcome.
The latest edition of Living Woods magazine arrived today and would you believe it... my frankenstein's monster of a shaving horse is featured on pages 18/19. I haven't had time to read the issue cover to cover just yet as I have been inundated with literally one email about my new found fame, but it looks great!
So what have I been up to since my last post? Driving to work, working and driving home from work mostly. But in the spare time I've been trying to work on some small pieces. I picked up a really beautiful piece of yew and have been trying to turn it into interesting little pieces of jewellery. Going quite well as it holds a shine amazingly! I also worked some freshly felled sweet chestnut. Man, what a pain that was. Stained my draw knife and scorp due to it's acidity and then promptly split terribly as it dried. Am I annoyed by this?? Not at all. It is yet another wood that I now have a little experience working and there is simply no substitute for experience. I picked up a few ash and oak logs recently which I am very excited about working. The old man is also going to provide me with some more yew and a bit of holly soon too. Who needs Christmas eh...?
