As my wise friend Mark Riley said, two of the happiest days in a man’s life are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells his boat.
Today was a happy day!
A tale of two seasons
It’s all a bit chilly at the end of the lane. Poor ducks.
It’s a bit of a different story from the post below…
September 2008
All dressed up
I spent a couple of days on a 400kV sub-station that basically provides the power for Leeds. The buzzing and popping of the electricity was smashing. I had to chuckle when I was in the portacabin canteen making a cup of tea and spotted a sign on the microwave saying “Danger high-voltage” before looking out of the window to see this….
It’s a wood store Jim
I was having a bit of a potter in the garden on Sunday morning and decided I quite fancied a fire. Unfortunately all my outside burny wood was a tad wet. So I thought I’d make use of some poles and an old tarpaulin that I had laying around to construct a little wood store at the back of my office.
It’s not exactly something that Ray Mears would be proud of but it does the job. In a few weeks time it’ll all be nice and dry and I can satisfy my pyromaniac sensibilities.
It’s white!
John and I managed to get the boat in the water for the first time this year. It’s been a tough year to get up to the Lakes what with children, work, veggies and a lawn to take care of but we made it up anyway.
We also discovered that the boat yard has a jet wash for the boat owners to use……
Before:
After:
It can quite clearly be seen that our boat is white! Amazing.
It’ll look even better at the end of this month when the insurance pay up for a repaint of the hull, we’re going a nice navy blue. Watch out for the pics in October!
Homemade and home picked
Amelia and I collected a pile of apples from our tree and then harvested blackberries from around the garden, and transformed them into this…
Bitch of a commute
Twice a week I work from home in my office. The commute is a killer having to negotiate discarded children’s toys, swooping pigeons and carniverous chickens. The office walls are a bit bare at the moment, I’m looking for inspiration about what to put on them.
Also, my wife always complains that anybody reading this blog wouldn’t realise I have any children, so you get a live picture of Amelia and a picture of a picture of Oliver. Happy now dearest?
Artists Impression
Before the building of my office was complete Amelia and I decided to create a model of it in Lego. We didn’t have any doors or enough windows or a roof. We made do instead with having a tree on the roof and getting into the office like Bow and Luke Duke and jumping in through the window.
I think we did pretty well considering.
Dork
Hee hee, dork alert. Keith is actually a very nice guy. I just like posting pictures of him and saying “Dork!”
Let the flame wars begin
Ed Barker, Live on Stage
Emma and I went for a night out to some dodgy working mens club in Wigan to watch Eddie Barker [ Emma’s step father ] singing on stage. It was ace! Cheap beer, bingo and Ed gave a shout out to me.
“This next song is dedicated to Darren, my son-in-law, for no other reason than he wanted his name mentioned”
Fantastic. Unfortunately the picture didn’t come out too well due to the bright lights, Ed does actually have a face – the camera does lie sometimes it would seem!
Segway ho
DIY Killing Cone
The time comes in every chicken keepers life when some of the old hens have just got to go. My last attempt at this involved an axe and a chicken doing cartwheels around my garden with a broken neck and blood spewing everywhere. To avoid a repeat of that situation I have “created” a killing cone to hold the chicken safely whilst I slit it’s jugular. It’s one of the nicer ways to kill a chicken. Certainly better than hitting them with an axe.
Now all I have to do is kill it, pluck it, gut it, cook it and eat it. That’ll be for another day!
Garden clearing
After loitering on my garden for nearly six months the shrubs, bushes and trees that had been really pissing me off had to go. Below is my attempt at smoking out the neighbours, and below that is the whole thing burning normally. There’s now an annoying bald patch on the garden where the bushes were 🙁
UK Scrappage Scheme
The final moments of the Mazda before it was scrapped under the UK scrappage scheme. The back window wouldn’t close, the front passenger side brake was seized, it was leaking water and the alternator was very dubious. Still, 2k for a car which I paid 2.4k four years ago isn’t a bad deal. Plus I get to sell the hardtop on e-bay which may put me into profit on the deal!
Paul Simkiss is my Delilah
Twenty years ago I was a bit of a bad lad and shaved a bald patch into Paul’s head and whipped off Jaz’s eyebrow in a pique of juvenile exuberance.
Fast forward to present day and as a group of nearly middle aged men Paul and Jaz get their revenge.
Below is a picture of the back of my head after Paul attacked me with Jaz’s clippers whilst I slept.
It’s quite difficult to make out the extent to which he disfigured me so here’s a shot of the hair that was chopped off.
Jason denies all involvement in the actual chopping but he admits to conspiring with Paul before the fact and with providing the clippers. Jaz left and Paul right below – Public Enemy numbers 2 and 1 respectively
…………………………………………………………………………….
The upshot of all this late night hairdressing was that my dear wife had to fight back the tears as she shaved off my golden wavy locks and reduced me to this…
The home office is finally happening
It’s been a long slog getting the ground ready but today is the day that Bill broke the ground and started putting in the concrete pillars that my bachelor pad…sorry pool room and bar …..sorry office finally got underway.
Above is the ground before I’d ripped up the tree stump and before I’d dug the trench to lay power, internet and water down to the site.
Below is the trench in mid dig with the micro digger I hired to get the job done.
Below, in the distance is Bill getting some water to mix up the concrete. The blue ducting is carry two Cat5e cables, one of which is shielded [ thanks to Keith for these ] and a water pipe. The black cable is 16mm armoured cable which was organised by Paul. It’s good to have friends!
The wooden boxes you can see are the first concrete pillars that Bill is putting in, there will be 12 in total to support the 5m by 4m floorspace, 1m of which will the raised decking at the front giving an internal space of 15 sq/m which should hopefully be enough for me.
and finally, when complete this should be the view from my office window…hopefully without Bill and a big pile of stuff that needs burning!
Gold in my front garden!
There’s a pot of gold waiting for me in the front garden somewhere!
Rat catching
A very dodgy video of me heading down the garden to check my rat trap
Twigs in my hair
Starting with a partridge, it had to be plucked, gutted and generally made cookable. After spatchcocking Percy the Partridge and cooking him over the fire for about 20 mins per side he was delicious!
Breaking through the skin to get the guts out was one of the most “gag-worthy breakfast about to make a re-appearance” moments I’ve had in a long time. Funnily enough Pippin the Pigeon whom I tore apart with my latex gloved hands the next day barely made me wince at all. What a difference a day makes!
3 days of torture
If you want to spend three days of your life agonising over why piece x is not square with piece y and then taking apart and rebuilding something over and over again then you too should buy a TP Toys Sherwood tower and then try building it on uneven ground.
An electric screwdriver is definitely recommended to drive in the 55 thousand screws that form the tower.
Still – Amelia loves it and I’m sure as Oliver gets older he will too.