Timbo

...so there am I on Sunday, firkling in me shed, when there's this BANG from t'other side of Trent, a shower of shot from the direction of Wroot hits the back of me shed and a round spinny thing puts me winder art and all yer could 'ear after like was these pheasants sniggerin 'int 'edge back! I was always fond of John Cleese and his reference in his 1988 BAFTA to the RSPB 'the Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds'!

Check for duvets!

With my brain on autopilot I keep waltzing into Ellie's to pick up Spotty only to realize my mistake halfway down the garden path. Spotty and our Black Lab Max now reside in the woods. A family expedition with Ellie, Mikey, Matty, Gracie, Arlo, me and the Beagle Brothers saw us scatter Max and Spot together in the woods as we visited all of their favourite walks. It did us all good as a family to be out together and it did Dylan and Toby some good too. Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud! With a rousing chorus of Flanders and Swan I head out to the the woods with the Beagle Brothers. Dylan seems to have enjoyed himself. I've been indoors and firkle free for a couple of weeks, although it seems longer. At first we had assumed that Dylan's head was still a bit of a shed as people were telling me I seemed to be in fine fettle. But it seems that my little lad had put himself back to work and was telling me I was going to be poorly for several days. Still, plenty of rest and I'm back firing on all two cylinders again. Back in my shed for a good firkle session and I pick up where I left off with the Safari Bar/Gin Palace. Hanukkah starts in three days time and Christmas is hot on its heels so I need to get on and finish the projects that need finishing to a deadline. It's time to make the drawer for the bar. The initial plan is to make a simple drawer with a small solid brass drawer pull. The drawer is only intended to hold the coasters so it doesn't need to be overly strong, simple half lap joints strengthened with dowels will do. What started out as a simple job got complicated. I hadn't noticed before but after this last 'do' I've developed a shake in my hands. Eventually, I get the drawer made and it is a reasonably snug fit. But I'm not happy with the aesthetics. Besides which the thread on the brass drawer pull was so short that despite countersinking the hole it would have meant a tiny sliver of material would be holding the thing in place. So I do away with the drawer pull and add a drawer front with a finger pull under the bottom edge. I might play around with the design yet, but in the meantime I need to get on with the project. Next job is to cut the backs to each half of the cabinet, final sanding and finishing of the internal components before fitting the backs and then get on with wrapping the exterior in leather.

Eton

These articles popped into my newsfeed over night, some interesting work and stories. https://medium.com/women-of-woodworking

I dunno about boat building specifically, but in terms of general woodworking I find I learn more from woodworking channels and woodworking blogs created by women. Overall, they seem to lack the 'snobbery' around tools, materials and technique demonstrated by channels and blogs featuring men. As a disabled woodworker I often find that they have found an easier method of producing an object, cutting a joint or hauling heavy lumber. They also do things more safely. Here are some of my favourite women woodworkers. First up is April Wilkerson. From huge wooden staircases, to chainsaws she will tackle just about any project. She will not only cover the solution to a problem she encounters but also the mistakes she makes. OK, I have to admit that there is a Charlie Dimmock element to her outfits, but as long as she knows what's she taking about I don't mind the denim shorts at all. One of my favourite woodworkers is Tamar. She works on smaller projects than April but is another that will show the mistakes she makes and how she corrected them. She has some excellent solutions to making quite complicated jobs quick and simple. Over in Europe there is Laura Kampf. Woodwork, metalwork, ceramics, leatherwork, you name it, she makes some incredible things and explains the processes involved incredibly well. She's also well in with Adam Savage another favourite 'maker' of mine. Still in Europe there is Christiana in Portugal and her channel Get Hands Dirty. Musician, sculptor and woodworker she's also a brilliant film maker. Back on the other side of the pond, although Swedish there is Linn on the Darbin Orvar channel. A very Edwardian vibe to some of the things she makes and the odd bit of campaign furniture she is another brilliant story teller who can explain the building process in terms even I can understand. Working mostly with wood and leather she passes on a lot of skills that have almost vanished.

I have boxes and boxes of slides, as well as a a hundred or so glass plates from the Victorian & Edwardian era that need digitizing. Some were Uncle Albert's photographs of our Broads holidays which had deteriorated very badly indeed. They had spent forty odd years floating around various cardboard boxes in lofts and cupboards. The majority are my great aunt's photograph collection. As well as all of her slides and projector I have inherited a 'home slide photograph developer machine' from the 50s or early 60s. I did start the process, but with so many slides it was quite a laborious task. I bought a slide scanner from Amazon for around twenty quid or so which does an excellent job of scanning the slides in batches of three. I kicked Photoshop into touch several years ago when I discovered how far the the GNU Image Manipulation Program or GIMP had developed. It surpasses Photoshop in many aspects, you can program functions yourself and there are many add-ons available to do specific tasks, such as scanning phot slides, applying the appropriate algorithm to correct a slide and even detecting the original brand of film used to take the photograph and making adjustments for the film. Did I mention that it is FREE? I had got to the point where I had a bit of a production line going scanning slides, correcting them in GIMP, storing them, retouching them by hand to take out scratches and any deterioration and finally adding them all to a dedicated hard drive. Sadly I got not so much bored as 'rubber room nuts' with the process. Here's one that was very badly damaged with a lot of information missing from the lower portion of the image. A very handsome 5yr old chappie at the helm of Captain XII in 1971. Heavy smoker even then!

Dylan has been much improved. Almost, almost back to his old self. He's still very clingy and won't leave my side...but then that's his job. He put himself back to work several days ago and was giving every indication of me being unwell. At first, as I felt fine and dandy we ignored him. But as my headache increased in intensity we realized that Dylan was back on the ball. On Friday morning I heard the sofa begin to shake. Dylan was under my feet in his new usual spot. Poor old Toby was now having a seizure, and a big one. After some considerable time Toby came around. On the advice of the vet we gave him half of one of Dylan's tablets. I got an early Christmas present on Friday. Ellie had bought me a new mattress, duvet, pillows and bedding. At three thirty Saturday morning Toby barfed on my bed. I hoiked him off the bed and dragged on my trousers as I ushered him down he hall and outside. As I got to the back door I pulled my trousers on to discover...he'd puked in my trousers before he'd climbed on the bed. With Toby sat by the fridge with Dylan begging for food...I was in the shower and the washing machine was on. "How did you sleep in your new bed?" Ellie asked. My reply contained a number of consonants, vowels, several exclamation marks and a hash tag! Toby is now feeling much better but has initiated a war over my new pillows. He is under the misguided impression that they are somehow his pillows. To stop his machinations I removed my pillows and replaced them with an old cushion. Toby fell for it and claimed the cushion...but soon realized his was a hollow victory and decamped to the sofa. Firkling has taken a back seat at the moment. By Saturday night I felt shocking and Ellie staged an intervention. I was sent to bed, with some tea, and a double dose of my meds. I have managed to complete the prototype of Ellie's present though. It turns out you can turn a pen without a lathe...but it will be slightly 'out'. I started with a piece of RT's old mahogany cabin side measuring 25 mm x 25 mm x 150 mm. I should have remembered from making Arlo's train that drilling a hole square through the centre of the 'pen blank' would be extremely difficult. On my second attempt I managed what seemed to be a hole right through the centre of the blank. It was 0.4 mm out of square but I thought that this would be accurate enough right? Wrong! I glued in the brass tubes that run through the centre of the pen before I threaded the two halves of the pen blank onto a 6 mm bolt and chucked it into my hand drill. I then spun the blank in the hand drill over the bed of my bench sander to round everything. Well chuffed with my success I then chucked the bolt into my drill press. Although spinning centrally close to the chuck, my makeshift mandrel was waggling all over the place at the point furthest away from the drill chuck. I took away one half of the pen blank and worked on the blank at the point closest to the drill chuck. I started with the top of the pen as this was going to be the most difficult. I had to get the circumference of the pen blank to exactly match the gold pen clip insert from the pen kit. I also had to cut a 5.6 mm x 2 mm tenon on the lower end of the pen top to accept the gold banding. Without turning tools I used a flat file to grind against the pen blank as it spun in the pillar drill. It worked well. The tenon was going to be harder. In the end I used a quarter inch bench chisel to cut this and was quite pleased with how clean it came out. Going through the grits I used strips of sandpaper to get the pen blank to its final dimensions before repeating the process with the lower half of the pen. Assembly was quite simple pushing the parts of the kit together using my bench vice. This is where the 0.4mm came to bite me in the bum. Over the length of the pen the 0.4mm turned into 2.5 mm and I ended up with the top and nib being slightly out of true. Not enough for someone to notice, but I noticed and it is irritating the hell out of me! So is forgetting to take photographs of the process. But here is the finished prototype pen anyway. Honduran Mahogany from RT and 17kt gold plated fittings.

I was pulled over by a policeman yesterday. Allegedly he had been trying to overtake me and I had not pulled over to let him through because I was 'oblivious to his lights'. "Try putting your siren on matey." was my reply. "The lights should have alerted you." "Look behind your car." He turned to look behind his car parked on the main drag into town, each house along the road festooned with flashing blue and red lights, several of the nearest flashing in unison with those on his patrol car. "Oh. My apologies sir." He put his siren on as he pulled out into traffic. I was informed this evening by my neighbour that the best Christmas lights in the area are mine. I was a bit confused as I don't have any Christmas lights up. Apparently it's the light spilling from my shed when I'm working. It looks warm and cosy in contrast to the mostly blue lights everyone else has put up.

To my great joy I found the the plans and dimensions for the manufacture of utility furniture. To my great annoyance they have not yet been digitized so can only be viewed by visiting Kew. Here's the library stem https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C3221

A quick update...lists of manufacturers during the war years who were using wood as a material are held at the Archives Office at Kew Gardens. Timber and plywood was our largest import during the war, way in excess of food or metals and was strictly regulated.

The GR is George Reigns and together with the Crown denotes 'Crown Supplies' or government issue, usually on furniture used by the civil defense or government offices, such as desks, chairs and beds. While hospital beds were metal, many civilian casualty receiving stations used wooden beds.

There's good news on the beagle watch from Timbo Towers here at Much Firkle on the Trent. Although its like living with Rainman at times there are signs of improvement in Dylan. The most obvious changes are one of his eyes has gone a bit 'Marty Feldman' and, only detectable when he walks indoors, a slight dragging of one of his feet. My thought is he's had a stroke during the seizures. Over the last couple of days he has calmed down though. He is still constantly at my feet, but he will now toddle off to bed for a sleep. I had been contemplating sitting in the car to eat my meals, but last night I managed to eat my tea without Dylan barging the door down to get at my food. I did cut some door wedges whilst firkling, but they were not needed. I suppose the hardest adjustment for me has been the change in his sleeping habits. When on board RT my 'furry hot water bottles' are a boon. Dylan has always slept in the crook of my knee and Toby will snuggle between my back and the side of the boat. The command 'assume snuggle position' and both beagles zip to their respective positions and stay there all night. At home, this translates to a constant battle for the duvet. Dylan spends the night nipping under the duvet into the crook of me knee and then sliding back out of the duvet, dragging it with him, when he gets too hot. Dylan has now totally changed his sleeping routine to sleeping on top of the duvet so I can't move at all. Usually annoying, this morning the familiar jab of cold wet nose to get me to lift the quilt, and it was a comfort when Dylan assumed 'snuggle position', promptly farted and forced me out of bed. Last night's walk was funny. Dylan decided he was going to caper about the field just like he did as a puppy engaging in mock battles with me and grabbing my trouser leg to trip me up before scampering around me in circles. I managed to get some firkling done yesterday. Ellie is THE HARDEST person to buy presents for. When your other half works in an emporium of 'goodies', whole rafts of possible gifts for SWMBO's get crossed off the list. But several times this year she has complained that people keep pinching her pen. She keeps buying pens that are easily identifiable only to find them missing and someone claiming they bought an identical instrument. So I decided to make her a pen from wood. Sounds simple? I've been hankering after a lathe for some time now, but a lathe is well down the list of essentials. I've measured the space I have available to accommodate it. I've seen the model that I want from Axminster and ordered their catalogue. In that most amazing publication of all things manly was a made of pen kits. So I bought a couple. I mean, surely there was a way to make a pen without a lathe?

I'm usually a bit strict about Christmas. It starts on the 24th of December and finishes on the 6th of January. Last year, I didn't bother at all. I usually get moaned at for not putting my decs up until Christmas Eve. This year I was considering putting my decorations up early until... ...three houses across the street put up all of their decorations on the 5th of November. Strings of blue lights, Christmas trees, the works. Looked like a police raid on the Costa del Cleethorpes. Last night the lights were off and the decorations were gone from all three houses. I had to ask them why? "The kids were moaning that they were bored of Christmas." ...so Mine are going up on the 24th!

As a handsome, witty, modest, intelligent and personable chap, mentally sound, tends to know what he's talking about, freely admits when he doesn't, dresses with impeccable taste and discernment,always smells divine and Chairman of this organization... I refute allegations that I choose people with similar interests, qualities and attributes to join our organization!

It's 4:03 AM and this is Dylan Watch! I've just been awakened by Dylan who was standing beside me on my bed starring at the headboard. For the umpteenth time since he came home, I got up and let him outside for a pee. I need to get some batteries for my torch as once again the council have decided to turn the street lamps off in the winter, after leaving them on all through the summer, and it is pitch black out there. Although it is a relief to have Dylan back home, he is a very different dog. Having six seizures in one day on Sunday has really taken its toll. With instruction from the vet to keep him calm, quiet and for him to rest and sleep as much as possible, it was several hours before I could coax him into sleeping. Since arriving home he has been constantly pestering for food, trying to eat anything and everything whether it is edible or not. He's barging down bolted doors to get to what he thinks could be food. He's also drinking for England stood starring at walls, appears to be totally blind in darkness, sits by me whining all of the time and refusing to sleep. Apparently this is to be expected. When I did manage to get him to sleep this afternoon, no sooner had he closed his eyes than there was a hammering on my door which woke him up. It was the chemist delivering my medication. With Dylan awake again, my only recourse was to take him and Toby for an extra walk to try and tire him out. Walking with both dogs on the lead, as Dylan is so disorientated he can't me trusted off the lead, we strolled across the remains of the medieval ridge and furrow at the end of the street and into the woods. As we completed our circuit and skirted the edge of the school field Dylan and Toby pricked up their ears and started to wag their tails. Dylan had spotted someone or someones he recognised. Flying down the path from the school, long hair streaming behind her was my Gracie. Stumping along behind her at full gallop in his wellies dragging his Teddy Mr Floppy Ears behind him was my Arlo. "Timbo! Timbo! My Timbo and Dylly and Toby!" shouted Arlo. Gracie launched into our usual after school banter. "Timbo, today I wrestled alligators and had a bed making competition with a T-Rex!" Later I collected Ellie from work and upon returning home discovered Dylan had managed to rip the bolts out of the door to barge his way into the kitchen. I set too sorting out the rehanging of the door, willing the clock to get to 17:30 PM so that I could give Dylan his evening dose of Phenobarbitone so that he would sleep. I started to make my own evening meal. Very difficult with a beagle wrapped around your legs. I filled a pan with cold water, tripped over the dog and dumped the water on him. Expecting him to go into a fit, relieved he didn't, annoyed at him under my feet and then struck my the horror of this happening with boiling water, I built a temporary barrier to stop Dylan's access to the kitchen. While my food was cooking I took the dogs out for another walk. When we returned I gave Dylan his tablet, fed both dogs and tried to gulp down my food shut in the kitchen while the dogs were eating. I finally managed to get Dylan to sleep for a couple of hours until Ellie popped in to see how we were. Fortunately I managed to get Dylan to go back to sleep around 22:00 PM until he woke me starring at the headboard. He's now wide awake, pestering for food, drinking for England, pestering to go outside for a walk, but it is too dark for me to be outside. His next medication is at 08:00 AM. I'm tired.

So it's been a harrowing night for me. Dylan the Starboard Beagle has been confused since we lost Spotty last Wednesday. By Friday Dylan was being physically sick. Saturday he had a couple of seizures. They normally come in twos with several weeks in between. Yesterday he had six seizures and by evening we were at the vets for an emergency appointment with Dylan needing to be sedated and kept in Doggy Hospital overnight. I telephoned the vets this morning. 'Come and collect your brute'. In the background I could hear Dylan barking. "How much do I owe you?" I asked. "Your house!" said the vet. He wasn't wrong. Dylan had one small fit at 2 am in the morning, but nothing since. His phenobarbitone levels were very low and his dosage has been upped from 30mg twice per day to 60mg twice per day. With a Sunday surgery fee, 2 vials of diazepam, a hospitalization fee, fee for taking blood, a phenobarbitone level test and another prescription of his medication on top of the vets fees we paid for Spotty this week...it means the end of my boat.

My dialect is a bit of a weird one. My family hails from the farmland between York and Doncaster. I'm an Isleonian from the Isle of Axholme, a small inland island that is bounded by Doncaster to the west, Scunthorpe to the North and Gainsborough to the South bounded by the rivers Torne, Trent and Idle. Its the only part of Lincolnshire north of the River Trent. Just like The Broads it is a landscape of fens, meres and carrs, farmland and peat diggings. Pumping stations at strategic points keep the Isle from flooding as most of the land is below sea level because unlike the Broads it was drained by Vermuyden. Our dialect is very 'strong', much stronger than a Yorkshire or even Norfolk accent, laced with words of Norse and Dutch origin. 'Incomers' would be hard pressed indeed to understand a 'local yokel' type at one time. It's more another language than an accent but it is very close to how English was spoken before the great vowel shift between 1400 -1700. The accent is starting to die out though with just the odd phrase or word left hanging around. But back in the late 1970's walk into the local pub and you would struggle to pick out one word in twenty. So 'Firkle' from the Norse yrkja meaning 'to work'. In medieval English 'firk' to move about or carry quickly or to cast out. "I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him." Shakespeare Henry V Part IV.

Thanks everyone. Spotty indeed was a character, a great escape artist and this very morning I observed the probable results of his escapes over the years. No less than four carbon copies of Spotty in various parts of town. The same short coat, similar markings,quite obviously 'part lurcher' and all Spotty. It was two year old Arlo that was wise and perceptive yesterday. He didn't mention Spot not being in his usual place...four inches from any food Arlo might be eating...not until Ellie moved Spot's bed out of the way and gave a little sob. "Is it Spotty Grandma?" asked Arlo cuddling his grandma. "He was old and very poorly Grandma." he said simply and cuddled up with his Grandma to watch Lucas The Spider for the ten millionth time. Edited to add: Driving to visit Ben Gunn and Nanny yesterday afternoon, Ellie mentioned that she felt euthanasia should be available humans. She was looking at me quite intently. On the off chance she's done a deal with the vet I'm on my best behaviour, doing as I'm told, trying not to shed, yet I still have a concern that should I ever have an accident on the carpet...

A sad day today. We lost one of our dogs, Spotty our border collie. He was a ripe old age, nineteen in October. But over the last couple of days he let us know that he'd had enough. Where normally he would be waiting at the door for me and the beagles to collect him for his walks, he was staying tucked up in his bed. We thought we were going to lose him nine months ago but he not so much perked up but point blank refused to go in and see Gordon the vet where normally he would trot in happy to see him. On that occasion a prescription and a booster shot had the old boy back on his feet. So much was he on his feet that he returned to his old tricks and organized an 'escape' that had me and the eldest lad tearing around the town and countryside for eight hours trying to recapture him, Spot staying just out of arms reach and still putting on a fair turn of speed when he wanted to. When we did finally catch up with him we clocked him trotting along at 28mph. A fair turn of speed for an eighteen year old dog. Today was different. The old boy'd had enough and although in true Spotty fashion rallied enough to resume eating, his favourite Maltesers, he only managed a couple. Our Vet's were brilliant and did their level best to accommodate us taking into account the Covid regulations. Ellie and Gracie are upset, but OK. The Beagle Brothers are a bit confused and keep looking for Spot. As for me? I don't think it's quite sunk in yet. For the last two days the walks have been quicker without having to wait for old Spotty and I keep turning into Ellie's gate to take the old boy home instead of carrying on to my house. Other dog walkers keep asking me why I only have the two dogs with me and not the usual three. But I'm sure I will cope. A spot of firkling in my shed is in order I think!

"What are you making?" Grandma asked grandson Arlo as he rummaged through his box of plastic play tools. "I'm not making, I'm fixing!" replied Arlo. "So what are you fixing?" asked Grandma. "Anything that is broken." said Arlo. "How do you know something is broken?" asked Grandma. "Because I break it so I can fix it!" said my two year old grandson, holding up the pieces of Grandma's telephone handset. The kid has a certain genius. Work is progressing on the Gin Palace. I'm now on a timetable as Ellie has started making the various Christmas gins. Packages from eBay and Amazon arrive through my letterbox containing the various fixtures and fittings I'm going to need to complete the project. It's exciting! With the outer carcase and inner linings completed it was time to cut the rebate for the hinge. From now on each stage of the project has to be right or I will have to start all over again. So I took my time marking up the hinge, cutting it to length, marking up both sides of the case and then routing out the slot to accept each side of the hinge. With temporary screws holding the hinge in place, I set about countersinking the hinge plates to accept the correct size screws and then drilling pilot holes to accept the fixings. All told it took me an afternoon of steady firkling to get everything mounted correctly. Because the outer carcase is going to be wrapped in leather, I don't want sharp edges cutting the hide, but at the same time I don't want to round things over to the extent that I normally like to see box edges. As it was too late in the day to get on with anything noisy, I picked up one of my favourite tools to start the process of breaking the edges on the outer carcase. Uncle Albert bought me a Veritas spokeshave for my birthday one year. It really is a fabulous high quality tool. In just a short time I had all of the edges uniformly rounded and I was one step closer to getting the project finished. The next job was to make the cutting and cheese boards, you can't have an evening snifter without a slice of lemon or lime or indeed a nice hunk of cheese! I don't like making cheeseboards, but I have it on good authority that among the Ladies Who Lunch a 'Timbo Hand Crafted Cheeseboard' is a 'must have' item worth more than money and only the best candle lit supper will have such an item as a centrepiece. The reason I don't like making cheeseboards is that it just feels like a waste of good wood! But with two boards needed for the Gin Palace and an additional board Ellie wanted to give as a gift I had three of the things to make. I rooted around in my offcut bin and came up with some spalted ash, Canadian maple and some black walnut. I decided to use the maple as the core of each board and then alternate the spalted ash with black walnut pinstripes. I needed two boards at around twenty millimetres thick and one board at just ten. So, I ripped the boards to thickness on the tablesaw and broke out the clamps and glue. Before clamping the boards together they were given good coats of Titebond II and then wrapped top and bottom in greaseproof paper. Then everything was clamped up. Once the glue had time to set I scraped off the worst of the glue seepage before clamping up the next board. In short order I had the three boards ready to plane. This time around I made sure that each board was well over fifteen inches long so that they could go through the Triton Bench Planer. This machine has been worth every penny, excellent bit of kit! On a cold but gloriously sunny November morning, I lugged the planer outside, donned my mask, safety glasses and ear defenders and set about torturing the neighbours eardrums while I planed the boards to the correct thickness. Then out with the tablesaw to rip the boards for the Gin Palace to width and all three boards to length using the crosscut sled. While I thought how to go about securing the Gin Palace boards inside the inner lining a finished off the standard cheeseboard. A forstner bit to cut the finger hole at the top and then to round over all the edges with the router. I prefer to use the Axminster Ovolo cutter as opposed to the Trend cutter as it gives a much cleaner edge and being smaller in diameter I can run it at a faster speed. I use 'Bench Cookies' to support pieces when I'm routing to prevent things slipping and sliding about. Once everything was cut and rounded over it was just a case of going through the grits with the sanding. I start off with sixty grit on the orbital sander. You can sometimes get tear out during the planing process as the grain of the individual strips making up the board run in alternate directions for strength and prevent warping of the board. From the sixty grit I work my way up through 120 grit, 240 grit, 320 grit and finally 400 grit. I then spray the surface of the board to lift the grain and start sanding again with the 240 grit through to 400 grit. While I'm sanding I'm looking for any defects in the board and fill any of these hairline or minor blemishes with epoxy. Anything bigger than a hair and the board gets scrapped. Once the epoxy is dry, I wet the surface again and once more go back through all of the grits. Finally it's time for some finish. I start off with a good coat of mineral oil. Wipe it on with a cloth, let it soak for an hour and then wipe it off again. The board is then left overnight to dry thoroughly. I make use of the bench cookies again but this time with their little 'pointy hats' on to support the board while the finish dries. When the board is dry it's time for another sanding, this time just a quick one at 400 grit. Then it's on with the finish proper. I use a hard oil and wax finish. I apply four coats of this finish allowing eight hours drying time between each coat. Three more coats to apply to this board and it's ready to go! Now then, how am going to attach those other two boards inside the Gin Palace?

Don't forget to set your filters from DSM to DTM. If you come across an area not covered on the map, give me a yell as I may have the data sets. I also have a full set of the higher resolution data sets. For maximum fun, drop the data from a specific area into a 3D modelling program. Don't forget to cross reference anything you see with the Norfolk Heritage Explorer which will also provide details of where to report new discoveries as well as a list of known sites and finds.

OK Folks...it's time to change your passwords! Yesterday I received an email with one of my passwords as the title of the mail. The communication then went on to attempt to extort money with threats to send photo's of me watching pornography to every contact in my email contacts list. Bearing in mind the password used was from a hardware store...and people that know me are used to me having an expression on my face similar to that of a bemused yak, I reported the mail to action fraud. What did interest me was action fraud saying that stores from Amazon to Argos, B&Q to Screwfix, Marks and Spenser and many more that I use have all had data breaches very recently and many have gone unreported. When I used Google Password Checker I was a little shocked to find that 83 websites that I use have all had data breaches and the software was recommending changing passwords or cancelling memberships. I'm slowly working my way through the list of sites changing passwords etc and cancelling membership of sites I no longer use. Just a heads up, right, I'm off to look at gratuitous pictures of chisels and lathes!

October the something or other until this morning. Days are beginning to blend and run together as I lose track of time. Clocks going backwards doesn't help my temporal dislocation at all. Neither does Dylan who had a seizure the other night and now wakes me up every hour to either go outside or refill his water bowl. Dylan's method of alerting you to the fact he wants his bowl filling is to pick up his metal bowl and bang it against the wall. Eventually, he will settle down but it does mean that I'm awake at some really weird hours of the night and catching up on sleep during the day. Back in the shed I started work on the second part of the Safari Bar. In the meantime, I've given the project a name. It will be a present for our friend Wendy who enjoys her gin. Ellie's nickname for Wendy is 'Maj' as in 'Her Majesty'. So, the Safari Bar is now 'Her Maj's Gin Palace'. I do a spot of research to ascertain the dimensions of various tumblers and gin schooners as this next part of Her Maj's Gin Palace will hold the glassware. I then divide the partitioning to equal dimensions. I kid you not, it must have taken me a day of measuring and calculation to do this. But eventually I had the dimensions right and cut the joinery. Cleaning up the pieces took a lot longer than I anticipated. As did putting masking tape around every joint to prevent glue squeeze out. Taking the masking tape back off again took even longer still! But eventually the hardwood partitioning slotted into the second carcase and I could give everything a final sand. I looked at a few historical sources and discovered that the original 18th and 19th century pieces had dowels and brass screw fastenings to secure the interior partitioning in place. So I did too. So that's the current state of play. I'm now at the pondering and designing on the hoof of the next phase. The bottles will be secured in place by a tray and the glasses will be held in their compartments by a chopping board. I also have a drawer to make to go above the bottle compartment. How those fitting will be held in place is something I'm still pondering. I have a sheet of solid brass that I'm thinking of making turn locks from. The leather that I'm going to cover Her Maj's Gin Palace with has arrived too, so I'm currently researching how I'm going to wrap the finished piece. But so far, I'm happy with what I have.

Friday 9th Inside my head I'm still in my early twenties. I'm fit, lithe and run marathons for the hell of it. Outside my head I'm old and decrepit, possibly in my seventies. In reality I'm only in my mid fifties...but decrepit all the same. I wake up with a banging headache. Dylan is laid by my pillow his nose millimetres from mine. Toby is on the floor with a paw lifted to tap me on the shoulder. This is not going to be a good day. I walk the boys through the woods and Ellie sends me back to bed after taking one look at me. Saturday 10th The headache is worse, compounded by Tesco not having my coffee bean of choice. The beagles are sticking to me like beagle hair to fresh varnish. A quick saunter through the woods and the leaves are starting to turn to bronze and gold. Gold above me and a carpet of gold beginning to form at my feet. I try to amuse myself having a tidy up and firkle in the shed, but it's an international weekend so there is no football worth listening to on the radio. The headache is getting worse so I close the shed and head back to my bed, the beagles scooting under the duvet beside me. I've had what Ellie and I call 'a bit of a do'. Sunday 11th October to Thursday 15th October Sleep. Pottering. More sleep and...I discover the YouTube realm of mudlarking, bottle digging and self proclaimed 'amateur archaeologists' who all seem to have Etsy stores where they sell handicrafts for the deranged made of the detritus they find from the bottom of rivers. There's another category of 'Magnet Fishing' which proves entertaining although I've only come across one channel where the guy knows what half the junk they pull up actually is. Such gems as 'I've found a Jesus Cross thing' have me shouting 'It's a crucifix you plumb'. A 'crafting session' where clay pipe stems are attached to broken porcelain doll heads and hands and turned into alleged jewelry has me wondering whether a criminal psychologist reviewing the channel might help solve a few murders. 'Isn't it cute?' wails the young lady and her mother together. No it's macabre and disturbing. I must be feeling better and Ellie has gone the extra mile to get me my coffee! Friday 16th October. An early morning trip to the mountebank and I am given the all clear. Time for a spot of firkling. I drag the planer out from under the bench and begin to plane all of the spalted ash panels. I quickly discover that I made a mistake in making the shorter panels too short to go through the planer. No problem, I relish the excercise of hand planing and took some time first to get my left hand and arm practised. I also scrounged a tea light from my neighbour to lubricate the sole of the plane. With all the panels planed and cut to size, I downed tools for a spot of tea and cake. Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake! Tea over, time to get on with some joinery. I tackled the side of the bar that would hold the bottles first. Again the joints would be half lap joints. The process was slow going as I calibrated the table saw over and over again to make sure I had everything correct. After 'a bit of a do', I'm often dysphasic and suffer a partial loss of language and or numbers, so I'm extra careful playing with tools like the table saw. It takes me the next two days to cut the joints required but eventually, slowly and surely with plenty of afternoon naps, I get the job done. I clean up my joints with a chisel and clean off all the pencil marks with an eraser before giving everything a sanding. Time for a test fitting, so far so good. Space for a drawer at the top and two bottles below it. A test fit inside the outer carcase also goes well so I glue up the first lost of hardwood partitioning. And now the fun begins! Taking the partitioning out of the clamps it's time to fit it into the outer carcase. A slow a tedious job as the outer keeps changing it's internal dimensions. The outer faces of the carcase are square but the inner faces are continuing to warp. The hardwood partitioning is square, plumb and true. A shaving here and a shaving there and eventually the partitioning slides into the outer shell.