Monday, April 14, 2008

Wild is the wind

Ha-hum. Perhaps that should be "Wild was the wind" for accuracy... If anyone cares to cast their mind back to last month and the rather excitable weather we had in Merrie Olde Englande? Yeah? Got it? Wind? Spring Tides? That sort of stuff? Well I had cause to empty out the old memory card from the camera and found the following:


Cast your mind back to here. Yeah, recall the willow throwing off the shackles of one branch? Remember how doubtful I was about the next branch "up"? Yeah, well I had a point it seems...


There, as they say, it isn't. That is to say it isn't "up" any more.



By the nature of the contorted beast, the split went deep into the trunk. And the next branch up was heading in a workshop-ly direction. I'm pleased to say The Management saw the peril and , Cornwall being Cornwall, the weekly-visiting fishman was hired to remove the offending tree.

Yes, the fishman. Bill the Fish, as we refer to him in a pseudo-Welsh manner. (Kinda like "Jones the Post" or "Williams the Satellite Installer" d'you see?) He's an ex-chef (couldn't take the stress of waking up at 3 am in a cold sweat imagining setting up 40 plates apparently) and now travels around in his van selling fish to the various old and young (mainly old) dears who are about during the day to buy it. It's almost impossible to get him to provide scallops, but that's by the by.

Anyway, when there's no fish (Bank Holidays, bad weather, etc) he turns his hand to, erm, just about anything. Including, it seems, taking down trees. Hey, he has a chain saw, what more d'you need? Well actually protective clothing. But he has that too. Well some of it. Oh heck, it wasn't me doing the hiring anyway... So on Good Friday he slaved like a Trojan in taking down and shredding the whole thing. Apart from a couple of chunks that are currently cluttering up the workshop with their ends sealed. Heck, something might as well take up floor space in the workshop at the moment - sure as a sharp plane makes shavings, I'm not....

Hope this almost-woodworking post hasn't shocked the multitude? Fear not. I came close to going into the workshop but was thwarted first by Paddy-The-Builder (can he fix it? Erm, hope so) and then Vic-The-Plumber (can I run away fast enough? Erm, no I can't) so the hibernation of all things toolish chez Alf is still sacrosanct. 

And finally, The Patient should really be re-classified. Possibly as The Im-Patient... Cooking has happened. Hobbling in the Big Wide World has happened. In short, The Patient is significantly more mobile and getting approving noises from the Physio, so our lives are pretty hellish just now. Yep, as foreseen; not quite well enough to regain the reins of domestic control, but more than well enough to tell us we're doing it the wrong way. In the words of Gene Hunt:


On which ghastly fan-girl note, enough! (Thanks to vickalo_999 for the icon, although I imagine she's unlikely to check out a woodworking blog...)

I'm hanging on in there - honest...

2 comments:

  1. Good to know you're still alive, if not exactly 'well'.

    Hang in there... I started making a set of bookshelvs this week, so workshop-type miracles can and do happen.

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  2. Great to know mom's improving, but it's inevitable that increased mobility leads to decreased stability during recovery and PT - so the strain on loved ones actually increases! Good news is that as mom keeps getting better that willow wood waiting in your shop will too!
    Vinny.

    ReplyDelete

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