Every silver lining....

Well here I am again, but at least this week’s debriefing is not a tale of woe and despair. The formica kick boards for the kitchen have been replaced, using planed, kiln dried, soft wood and Colron “Jacobean dark oak” beeswax. Which, despite some earlier reservations, did produce a suitable (albeit light oak) finish. But as usual every silver lining has a cloud and the downside here being that now the remaining skirting boards look some what, how you say – ah yes that’s it, crap. So now said skirting boards are to be replaced this week to match the kick boards before I can say that the job is finished and collect my much needed brownie points.

Speaking of brownie points I’ve also fallen into negative equity with these little ‘time in the garage’ vouchers. My friend, Chunky Monkey, has come up with the rather good idea of going halves on the purchase of an apple press and associated equipment with the view of producing our own cloudy cider elixir instead of paying through the nose for it. Too which Clare has sort of agreed to (well the word no was not heard to pass her lips upon this occasion!), which means that more brownie points are required to make up for this unexpected turn of good fortune. It also means that this autumn’s foraging will now include apples and pears as well as the usual chestnuts, sloe berries and wild mushrooms. Oh yes that also means that I’ll be scouring the car boots sales for that elusive fruit, the demijohn. Ah home brewing, you know it makes sense.

So it appears at first glance that little, if anything, has been achieved upon project X this week. But fear not my friends all is not as it seems. For a start, earlier this week I’ve managed to ‘acquire’ all the necessary materials to produced the supporting yolks at a very reasonable price (free again – you’ll notice these two words a lot in future postings!) which means that I’ll hopefully have the little lady the right way up at some point in the very near future. Also I’m not being frowned upon quite as much by Pops (he needed some stainless plate that I happened to be able to acquire), which means that I’ll be picking up that small Seagull outboard motor some time this week, well at least before I but my black wool coat on and start bleating again. And to cap off what has been a reasonable week without actual touching project X, me mate, Jim Lad, seems to think that he can lay his hands upon a set of sails in better condition than the ones that he’s already provided, plus some rigging that I appear to be missing. So even though the only progress that I seemed to have made this week were a few longing glances at the little lady from the workshop side of the garage, the truth is that project X is flying along, well in an upside down, still on the axle stands sort of way.....