Visitors from Abroad

Alf Towers can no longer claim to have never had Southern Yellow Pine darken its doors. It arrived this afternoon and, um... well South London Hardwoods don't exactly trouble themselves with packing, do they? As it turned out, they don't trouble themselves with keeping it in stock either, so all told I might as well have gone to the local place and had three bare planks turn up that way. Heigh ho. And no, don't harangue me about using SLH or buying sight unseen. The latter is a no option situation, and the former were just there and easy to click before I had time to bottle out again. Next time, I'll bottle...

Now, while I believe much of the country is supposed to be suffering in heat and sun, down here it's been mizzling all day. Until the planks arrived, naturally. When it decided to rain. So I had to move quick to turn 16' planks into manageable lengths that'd fit into the garage. And, indeed, that I could move by myself at all. Not for the first time, I blessed the Sawing Machine, which treated it all as so much butter. Okay, so maybe butter that had been in the fridge for a while, but that may just be the feeble and out-of-condition motor that was attached to the handle...

The flat-topped saw horses I made a zillion years ago also more than earned their oats. Not one single solitary proper joint in the whole design, but sturdy as hell and did not so much as rock as I woman-handled the boards onto them, one end at a time. Plus their tops are wide and comfortable enough to sink onto in case of sudden collapse of unfit sawyers. Not that such a purpose was required this afternoon. No, sir. Ha hum...

I also had to get a move on owing to some complaints from the neighbours who've moved in next door to the garage this summer.

Ma and Pa swallow gave up waiting for me to clear off and simply ignored me while they sat on the front gate and encouraged their offspring to jolly well get a move on and leave home. Poor Ma and Pa are all pooped out and it seems the joys of parenthood have palled. There are at least 4 and possibly 5 beaks to feed, and boy, do those little birds grow. I fancy it did make the sawing go a little easier though, knowing that the sweat of honest toil wasn't upsetting the wildlife, where the screaming motor of a tailed demon surely would.

Now the next question is how to make moving those lengths of SYP from the garage to the workshop anything less than painful. I tell you, already this isn't half reminding me why I bought a workbench in the first place...