Trepidation, Alarm and Consternation

Firstly apologies to anyone who's tried to email me in the last couple of days - somehow doing the Right Thing of backing up my web site resulted in gobbling up the remaining disk space until I'd worked out how to get rid of the back-up file. Result, no room for incoming emails for the duration. D'oh. S'okay now though; the flow of spam may continue unabated.

Meanwhile nephews Nos 1 & 2 have descended upon Alf Towers, spreading famine and desolation in their wake... No, that's really not fair at all - No.1 is making Chocolate Stollen (Christmas comes but twice a year chez Alf...) and a Lemon Tart even as I type. Mmmmmmm. No.2 provides the locust effect all on his own; although a large Cornish Pasty did slow him up a little, thank goodness.

Moved all the free mahogany (and stained pine and a dubious piece of alleged oak) into the workshop but still need to spend Some Time taking out all the screws, tacks, nails, pins etc and removing the old glue, foam and insect pupae before I know if there's really much there of practical use. Something to look forward to, eh? On the plus side bits of wood have to be really, really small before they're no use even on the lathe, so odds are I'll get something out of it more than just a covering of dust.

Also tackled a couple of backsaw sharpenings that I've been trying to get to for a while now - naturally just a feeble excuse to christen the "new" vice. Ironically one saw has so little depth under the handle I couldn't actually use the vice on it anyway, but it worked beautifully for the other. Two hours shaping 'n' sharpening at a time is about my limit though; after that the saw teeth start waltzing about across my vision and Sharpening Horror Ensues. Prior to that it's merely Sharpening Trepidation, Alarm and Consternation...

Gotta love the Theasaurus Widget for the Mac, huh?