grendel

or maybe he left his grapes too long and they wrinkled up - thus discovering a new preserved food- so he was the raisin king.

I have already got a shopping list for Cornwall model boats and am looking at the noisy thing II for sounds (I just need to get a recording of Griff telling one of his jokes to add to the sounds ). Todays progress 2 more stringers glued on one side and prepping the stringers for the other side one of my curved parts needed a little extra steam just to make the bend. that is clamped in place now, drying off, before gluing tomorrow.

Tim, I think that for some clubs I am maybe a generation too young, even with the one at Herne Bay I wont be able to participate in the wednesday sailing for maybe another 10 years (when I retire). Though when I visited Sunday there was some evidence of younger members. I believe that we may be the last generation for some of these hobbies, as not many youngsters seem interested in anything but their phone screen nowadays.

I bet Charlie will get caught peeking, as when he sees this weekends progress he's not going to be able to keep quiet.

after my tea, I got one more stringer in place, one of the pre bent ones, I just tried one if the thinner stringers and it looks like I may be able to fit those without steaming. I also mixed up a little pva and sawdust, and filled that annoying knot hole in the keel. once set it will be sanded down.

took me ages to find enough, luckily those clamps were a good find at the boot fair this morning, they are just perfect. one minor hazard I encountered was when I knocked a chisel off my bench, it dropped straight down, and hit me in the big toe - sharp edge first, kensington all over the place.

a bit more progress, the front piece has been clamped in place, and the keel is now glued in place, this is really starting to come together, the rest of the stringers will need to be steamed to shape at the front, as the curves are just too tight otherwise, then will come making formers for the ribs, this will mean cutting out the other bulkheads, then marking a shape based on these, as long as its fairly close the ribs will be able to be sprung into position, thus using the bulkheads, but the ribs have to pass above the hog so the bulkheads will be used to make separate formers. I will make twice the number of ribs I need when shaping, for the second model. I suspect the making of the ribs will keep me busy for a few months.

Later this morning I went out on a reconnaissance of another local boating lake - just about 6 miles from me, here I met some members of another local model boat club, who were a bit friendlier than the one about 12 miles off, its also a bigger boating lake, and is open to everyone.

Well this morning the boot fair yielded a small handful of useful tools, plus an aqua vac for just £3 (to use as a shop vac to connect to tools to keep the dust down) it probably needs a new air filter. The bulkheads have all been taken off and copied to a new sheet of ply to await cutting out when I start the second hull. I dont know if you can see the pencil marks on the plywood. The other milestone is I have marked a bulkhead to sit behind the nosepiece, this has to sit at an angle, so a temporary support has been made (I glued it on after fixing masking tape to stop it sticking permanently) then I started out by fixing 2 stringers and the two rails where the cabin sides meet the deck - Gluing has started

Scrooge?

To be honest caring for elderly cats can be quite stressful at times, Boo was almost totally deaf (or totally ignored us), and Ingrid went blind in the weeks before she passed, all this makes caring for them more difficult, so with only the younger ones left we are hoping for a good few incident free years now.

Well I was right, when I came down this morning Boo had passed on, so a morning spent sorting that out (our garden is too small to bury our pets), but this evening to fill the void left I let myself be busy, the second transom was finished and shaped up, and then the first was put into position, and the slots marked and cut for the stringers, its getting to the exciting stage now. next job, take it down, then mark out the frames for boat 2, then its time to put it back together and start fixing everything together

Well thats too many too close together, last night during the night our 23 year old boy Boo passed on, we gave him a good life, but he just wore out through old age, Rest peacefully old boy, see you at the Rainbow bridge. we have now lost our 3 oldest cats over the last 3 months, though I believe the youngest was at least 17 years old. We are now down to 4 cats, the oldest of those is under 10 years old so we hopefully have a few years yet before the next sad event.

Today at lunch time I cleaned up the glue on the second transom, when I got home the fillets were added in the corners, then the first transom was cut to shape and sanded down, and looks very pretty. on a sadder note our 23 year old cat seems to have taken a downward turn, he is still drinking, but ignored the tinned tuna he was offered, he is next to my work area lying on an old towel at the moment, barely moving, earlier I rescued him from the cat litter, he had got there then decided he didnt have the energy to move and he was there when I got home from work, he is not suffering, so if thats how he wants to leave us that will be his decision. I am sure he only has a few days left with us - but my daughter and I thought the same last weekend, and he is still here.

especially if inflicted with a rope poet.

Its worse up the Cairngorms.

I was trimming the dried glue out of the corners, while eating some raspberries for lunch

raining today, but yesterday I recieved an email from the boss following my response to a previous email on the temperature in the office:- "I was told a hobbit just walked into the office and threw a ring at you all thinking it was in the fiery depths of Mordor I also note nobody noticed my intentional misspelling of the word temperature in the subject, the heat must be affecting you all quite badly" I of course responded:- "Mordor? We would be happy with Morwindows."

I am very happy with the way both of these have come out, this is the first gluing done and has gone quite well, these will have to be notched to take the stringers, then fixed to the building board, then the other frames will come off, be traced for the second hull, and construction will begin in earnest. by the way the red on one is not my blood, its rasperry juice, where i was cleaning up glue while eating my lunch

well fitted the corner fillets for one transom and finished gluing the other (bar the fillets) then it will be cleaning up and rounding off the corners on the fretsaw.

27 here too today, its been hot since we got into the office, we have the fans on, our big one is set to '3' - Hurricane force at the moment (its nearly 24" diameter and roars like an old turbo prop taking off- which is just what our paperwork has done.

The £1 coin will be inferred as a tribute to the larval stage, to keep them docile when they are unchained from the pack, this is supposed to work, but on occasions you will find that the larval trolley stage gets restless, usually accompanied by wobbling of the wheels and the inability to steer the beast in the direction you wish to take.......

we do get our own back in the winter as our floor has the radiators.

its been lovely (not) in our office, at over 30 degrees, only a few miles from the hottest place in the country (gravesend) we have only windows that open and fans, above 27 degrees, you get no cooling effect from a fan, it is then just stirring the warm air. generally our office is a couple of degrees warmer than outside, downstairs where they dont have the windows, they have air conditioning - its lovely. - upstairs under the big tin roof of our industrial unit with a warm breeze through the office stirred by the fans, we are suffering about 33 degrees - it was so bad the other night, that it was cooler in my car in the car park (and that was registering 31 degrees).

Though I do have to admit I could not find an image of the 'actual' spearhead found