Stairway to Heaven

So the keyboard cometh, and thus back to the step. Took a lot longer than anticipated, 'cos the Old Man instead of doing a little light shimming, practically rebuilt the granite step with cement. Naturally that entailed giving it a little longer to dry and, if you look carefully, also offering more opportunities for personalisation...


No, not the building inspector of the earlier picture, but her oppo, Polly. Rest assured I signed and dated her prints before hiding them from sight - although she'd probably have liked a gold star and a whole ceremony outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for preference...

On Sunday a solid three hours work saw the step completed and me left wondering what there was to show for my aching knees. Barely any real woodwork to speak of, the "best" being scribing the edges of the boards to fit the contours of the floor and some tweaking flush with the squirrel tail plane. The latter I found ideal for this one-handed, no-workbench sort of work. Very handy.

Not that I was idle whist waiting for the cement to dry. No sir. First the hinted-at Chicken Pie piff, paff, puff pastry-ed its way into being. Not played with puff pastry before - very exciting watching it explode, er, I mean cook. And no, I didn't make it; I do the contents and Mr Jus-Rol provides the pastry. Mind you I have to roll it out, so it's not quite like using ply...

Unfortunately the bananas didn't do the decent thing and die, so I made a Banana and Honey Tea Bread as well.

So while The Patient's ankle is doing well, we're all in danger of coronary heart disease... 

No, no! Fruit and vegetables are featuring a good deal, it's just a saucepan of peas on the hob isn't calculated to make great blog fare, is it? Or good comfort food.

Meanwhile cabin fever is setting in and I find myself emailing various purveyors of fine tools inquiring about things that really I shouldn't be even contemplating buying ('specially not after unexpected forking out for keyboards). Worse than that - I have a chisel itch again. Sounds nasty, doesn't it? Trust me, the consequences if I succumb are very nasty indeed...

Locked out

Bear with me, folks - the keyboard has succumbed to drink and isn't working anymore (half a glass of white wine. I know; I thought "what a waste" too...) Another is on order and should, with luck, be with me tomorrow or Wednesday. You'll have await a proper blogging until then 'cos this keyboard (and 'puter) is driving me nuts.

It's woodworking, Jim...

...but not as we know it.

Barely had I taken breath to update on The Patient when we get about three hours notice that she's on her way home. So in three hours we had to move a load of furniture, dismantle and rebuild a bed, and sundry other preparations for Six Weeks on a walking frame. And verily, so it came to pass, and The Patient breathed a sigh of relief to be Home. 

I'm already missing hospital visiting. Certain People forget that nearest and dearest available (viz: two) do not equate to nursing and auxiliary staff on hospital word (viz: legion) and are inclined to line up the requests while the harassed ones are still trying to deal with the first thing...

However, that's by-the-by. Somewhat more pressing is giving The Patient access beyond one room; made a little tricky by the split-level nature of the house and the front-to-back depth required by the dreaded Zimmer. Now those steps are better than most, and in fact there's only one that's not deep enough, and here it is, stripped of it's concealing carpet and a dodgy bit of MDF - exposed to the world:

I know what you're thinking - is the plumber back. Nope, he was a couple of weeks ago. But I digress...

See that spirit level in the background? That revealed a slope in two directions, no less. Plus there's some very poor, loose cement work on the right hand side, with a little damp there too. However I've managed to find and cut to (a reasonable) fit a piece of 3/4" ply to extend the step to nearly two feet. Then I get to round its front edge and put some finish on it to dissuade the damp, while the Old Man replaces the poor cement with some better and tries to level the step off a little. Then back I'll come (so goes the plan, anyway) to make and fix a sort of open box to create the rest of the step, add shims as required to the existing step, screw the ply down and go on my way rejoicing, leaving him to sort out the carpet.

That's the plan anyway. Many a slip twixt cup and lip, of course... It is, I suppose, woodworking. Of a sort. Not exactly the sort I enjoy though.

Update

Sorry, folks - got a little side-tracked.

Ankle update: operation went okay, patient now embarking on learning to deal with crutches. Once that's okay-d, homeward bound. Thank goodness; hospital visiting, while it's nice to see the old loved one, doesn't half eat away the day.

Culinary update: erm, not a lot actually. I was mulling over whether some rather elderly bananas were calling sufficiently loud enough to be turned into a banana and honey loaf, but I may have prevaricated long enough for them to have safely ripened beyond redemption. Just as well wood doesn't rot as fast or I'd never make anything... The Old Man did a fine roast chicken earlier this week, even unto his first bread sauce, entirely without my assistance. The latter may account for why it was so nice. Regrettably he's already dropped hints about a chicken pie, but with my cooking, it's less "nothing is as loving as something from the oven" and more a dangerous flirtation with Pie-induced Patricide...

Workshop update: time actually being spent therein. Oo-er, missus! Thanks entirely to LV asking for my arbitary prejudices, likes and dislikes to be brought to bear on something. Alas, 'tis not to be revealed, so you'll have to stay in ignorance. So while it is workshop time, it's not terribly productive as far as I'm concerned. But hey, it would be nice to delude oneself that it's productive for the R&D chaps; even if it's only in learning to bite their tongues and not say "what the h*** is this freaky-handed English dame talking about?!" ;-)