Credit Crunch

So once again a bit of snow and the entire country ground to a halt. Honestly, I couldn't look a Scandinavian or Canadian in the eye at the moment, really I couldn't. Most annoyingly of all, down here in these mild climes, we probably struggled to get an inch and a half all told - just enough to be irritating but not nearly enough to be fun. Anyway, by roundabout means this resulted in my having some time on my hands, in which I finally caught up with my two-year backlog of woodworking magazines.

Now I'm used to reading magazines that are a little out of date; some of my favourites are over 80 years old. In fact you might say I actually prefer them. They're somehow a more calming read; there's not the imperative to be up with the latest thing all the time. For example, any magazine or blog that Chris Schwarz has anything to do with is the total antithesis of that. Not in a bad way, I hasten to add; he's done more to get folks to think beyond the power cord than most. But boy, can it get expensive for the tool butterfly, like wot I am. Indeed I find the whole getting-back-into-woodworking thing is already starting to cost me money and you'll have noticed I haven't actually made anything yet.

Take the magazines; well it seems I only had a one year sub to Woodworking and so felt compelled to order the four issues from 2009 to get back up to date. Yes, I hesitated over the CD instead, but a good deal of the joy of the magazine is the beautiful presentation and feel of it; it puts you in the right frame of mind to at least try and create work of beauty, even if you fail spectacularly... The cost of shipping was almost as much as the cost of the magazines though. Ouch. Then I find out the Lost Art Press (that man again) has a couple of interesting volumes in print, and what with one thing and another it seems a shame not to have a copy, doesn't it? Then just before Christmas Workshop Heaven, always a site of danger to this magpie, gets in a new and intriguing line of planes, and somehow I found I'd ordered one. Which I don't need, didn't - up 'til that moment - want and now feel I really ought to review to make it at least seem like there was a plan.

I know. I'm kidding no-one; not even myself...

And now I'm finally pottering round the workshop again I find a chuck key has gone walkies; some wandering knockers from the tin mines have chewed up my screwdrivers (or it might have been the old man, but he ain't confessing if it was...); all my glue is at least two-years old and well beyond use; someone's walked off with the methylated spirits - or possibly drunk it; and not to put too fine a point on it there's a considerable order from Axminster accumulating on the back of an envelope. And an order from them is almost as dangerous a thing to start as a visit to the aforementioned Workshop Heaven.

So while I may have missed a good deal by being on the woodworking wagon for bit, there have been benefits. Solvency, for instance... ;)