The place where I document the stupid stuff I do
As part of the house extension we made Oli’s room bigger so he had no need of the bunk bed come desk/storage underneath. We took the bed apart and I’ve been making various things with the wood. The latest masterpiece is a couple of coat hooks for the downstairs cloak room. I used a spirit level and everything, although the second one I put up still looks a little wonky.
This particular bad boy, of which I’m quite impressed even though it’s probably a girls belt, was purchased at the Vintage Shop in Ormskirk. Again, I apologise for the flesh.
We finally got around to sanding and varnishing the ex worksurface that is now Oli’s desk. Oli did most of the work with me supervising.
Unusually for any Darren/Oli DIY projects nothing really went wrong. We hade some minor issues with rawl plugs but I think this is because I was using 50yr old rawl plugs from my Grandad which were none standard size. I’ve now ( sadly ) had to throw them away and buy some more modern ones.
One of the many very generous gifts for my 50th birthday from my London Crew was a day of driving classic cars.
I opted to drive a Jaguar e-type
an Aston Martin DB-5
and a Ford Escort Mk1 rally car
It was an excellent day of cars, sunshine and fun
If anyone needs a very talented builder that mostly turns up, drinks tea and eats biscuits….and then leaves again without actually doing any building work then I’ve got just the fella…
Emma was wandering down the Aldi middle aisle and saw a magnetic thing for sticking tools on. Being the wonderful wife that she is – she bought it for me. It sat around in the living room for a couple of months but I finally got around to installing it in my garage and sticking some tools to it. Absolute genius!
Shhh, don’t tell Oli but the Z4 is going up for sale. Oli absolutely insists that I mustn’t sell it, but I want a Tesla…and some space on my drive. It’s got a bit of a dink on the side where I dropped a table frame on it about a week after buying the car – because I’m a dick like that – but other than that it’s in fine working order. It’ll be a shame to see it go but ho hum
When we took down the old rat infested stinky utility room we pulled out a bit of work-surface which was in pretty good condition. I thought we could re-purpose it for something in the future. Turns out it’s going to make a pretty good desk for Oli’s ‘new’ room.
So we sanded it down and we had to borrow Mark’s drill to put the holes in for the desk grommet for the cables.
Next came the time to give it a light varnish so I let Oli take the lead on this bit.
It has a few dinks in it as you can see from the picture above but I think that gives it character and helps us remember where it came from. Plus, he’ll probably just stick a mouse mat over them or something.
Next step – attaching it to his bedroom wall. Eeeek
My old college friend Andy died recently. Terrible news. Far too young and leaving behind a wife and kids. Terribly upsetting.
A few of us travelled down for his funeral.
Then we went out for a curry and beer, it’s what he would have wanted
Phil was also at the funeral but he didn’t come for a curry.
Gordon had covid in this picture – fortunately he didn’t pass it on to everyone which shows that immunisations are good m’kay
A swanky new restaurant opened nearby called Solo. In a similar vein to L’Enclume and Moor Hall. So Emma and I just had to have a visit to celebrate her birthday.
It was a little pricey, probably about £250 for a 5 course taster lunch for two, but then we did also drink two bottles of English Wine which accounted for about £100.
Expensive as it may be – definitely… definitely worth it.
We’ll be returning.
I had to drop my car off in Wigan to get the roof fixed and Daisy needed some hoooman company. So I googled whether or not dogs are welcome on trains [ they are ] and then off we went.
We had a bit of time to kill in Wigan waiting for the train to Parbold so I got a sausage roll for the walk home and a sausage butty to eat then. Daisy, with her constant stare that just bores into your soul had the lions share of the butty.
Then onto the train to Parbold
and then a nice long walk across the fields and back home. We were both properly tired when we got home. Daisy was mostly tired from carrying sticks
After a few days of hanging out with Charlie and James in Manchester the last job before heading home was to add a lick of paint to the skirting boards in the practice room/recording studio.
Picked up this bad boy during a trip to Afflecks Palace with Charlie. I got a belt and he got two piercings then we went to the pub. All in all quite an epic trip. I even managed to fit in a Chicken Jalfrezi and garlic naan from ‘spoons.
Sweet potato fritters with lashings of smoked paprika. Pretty damned good if you ask me
My Mum bought me this wheelbarrow a few years ago. I wanted this one because it had a non puncturable wheel and with the number of Hawthorn bushes we have it’s pretty important. Anyway, after carrying around tonnes upon tonnes of stone, paving slabs, wood and all sorts of other crap – it kinda started falling apart.
The bolts holding the lifting arms to the bucket had worn through the bucket and so it was a bit wobbly.
A quick trip to the local hardware store for some big ass washers for the princely sum of £0.60 [ it would have been less but I bought 4 washers rather than the 2 I needed in case the the 2 I needed didn’t work out…complex stuff ] the wheelbarrow is back to being a thing of beauty.
I used to regularly do yearly or indeed quarterly challenges, but I don’t think I’ve done one for a while. So this year I opted to buy a new belt each month. Mainly because I just had the standard boring brown and black belts with the hoopy toothy thing. You know, like a normal belt! Anyway…here is the January belt – bought off eBay because I couldn’t find one in proper shops that I liked
This challenge will of course have the unfortunate side effect of the internet getting a close up of my crotch – but we all have our crosses to bear.
Playing with my new oven
We didn’t go too far this day. We just did our standard loop around the fields and sit on the bench. It was just nice to blow away some cobwebs after a late NYE!
The extension is still missing the utility room/larder, skirting boards, some doors and a few other bits and pieces…but it’s definitely getting closer
The tiles were laid during a mammoth red wine drinking session – so we may have to do a few touch ups.
To celebrate some ridiculously long marriage of Madeline and Cliff [ 65 years or something – they actually had a letter from the Queen! ] we went out for lunch at The Barn just off the East Lancs. Charlie and I drank wine and I then became a superhero.
