Tag Archives: wood turning

6.44 & All That

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I had to do some writing late last night as I had to get up early. Counter intuitive? Yes, I agree.

In the old days I would just have wound up my alarm clock and gone to bed. Later, I would have set my electric clock and my alarm clock – living in the country there were often disruptions to the supply I learned you couldn’t trust the electric one. I then went back to traditional alarms and then to a small battery operated alarm clock that allowed me to “snooze”. This was a Bad Thing, as Sellar & Yeatman would say.

These days, of course, I use my phone. I am a modern man and can set an alarm on a telephone. I’m not that modern that it feels natural, but I manage. Anyway, I wrote a bit. The reason I did that was because my telephone battery had run down and I needed to charge it enough to make sure I had confidence it would last.

I selected 7.00 as the time to get up, took pain killers and went to sleep. At 6.44 I woke, annoyingly early, and was able, because of the aforementioned pills, to get a decent start.

I had to be at the surgery for 8.00 as I am once again in the hands of the medical profession. I will give no details as they do not show me in a good light. Basically, I have been self-medicating for the last two months and have finally had to admit I am not improving. Enter the Practice Nurse. That is the nurse who works at the GP Practice, not one that is trying to improve.

I thought I’d better point that out in case Donald Trump decided to send a medical ship to help.

Anyway, it all went well and it looks like I may be cured of my physical ailments in the next couple of months. The stupidity which led to me avoiding the doctor may take longer to cure, according to Julia, who is not very happy with me.

Wild flowers

Anyway, back to the point. To avoid disturbing Julia I used the torch on my phone to sneak into bed. While I was doing that I became fascinated by the torch. I mean, how great is it to have a torch that bright attached to your phone? It’s a tiny bulb too. I was so fascinated by it that I looked directly at it, dazzled myself, tripped and fell on the bed. This woke Julia up, which was both good and bad. Bad because she was a little irritated by being woken suddenly,  but good as it allowed me to tell her about how great my torch was. And because I didn’t fall on the floor.

With hindsight I may have been better just apologising and staying quiet.

The pictures are a bud vase Julia made from Zebra wood, with silk flowers in it, and the same bud vase without silk flowers in it. Also a random photo of summer flowers.

Neither the self-medication nor the waking a Julia were the worse things I did yesterday, I also sent of a set of poems to an editor by mistake, having already sent them to someone else. Editors hate that. I have written to withdraw them and apologise but so far have not heard back.

I also had a poem accepted this morning, but that’s a small bright spot in all the doom and displeasure I am accumulating around me.

 

 

A Red Letter Day

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The two pens together. The third proved to be a faulty piece of wood and broke on the lathe.

Furious does not begin to sum up exactly how I feel after once again losing part of the post when trying to insert a photograph. This happens more and more and even though I take care with it, it still seems to happen. I am left with the impression that each year I pay more money for a slightly worse service. 

It's the same the whole world over,
it's the poor that gets the blame,
it's the rich that get's the pleasure,
ain't it a bleedin' shame?

I woke up twice in the night with snatches of this post ready written. Once it was a chorus from a music hall song and the second time it was the word “mephitic” though in both cases they were also accompanied by searing prose. Of course, on waking properly, the prose had become less searing and after several attempts I gave up. Actually, when I think about it, I may have dreamt the prose.

Compared to my normal Parker

The skill I need to develop is not the ability to write hard-hitting political blog posts, but the wisdom to know I can’t write them and shouldn’t try.

The first good news on WP was that Laurie Graves came back a while ago. She had gone over to just posting on Facebook, which is always a problem. I am on Facebook for the numismatics but as I read some of the stuff that people post (not Laurie of course) I feel my intelligence slowly leaking out. Why is it that idiots always want to share their opinions? 

Then, a few weeks ago, Clare Pooley turned up. I don’t, of course, have favourite bloggers, because you are all good in different ways, but Clare does live in a particularly attractive county. The clue is in the blog name. Not saying Suffolk is nicer than Maine, where Laurie comes from, but the winters are shorter and the snow is less deep, both qualities I admire in a winter.

This is the one I chose. It sits nicely in the hand.

Finally, today, I find that Charlie Robinson is back. Writer, runner, reprobate and raconteur. Just published his second novel, blogging again, it’s good to see him back. I always admired his haircut and now have one to match.

So, with three classic bloggers back in the fold, that has given me something cheerful to write about. I will do pictures of the famous pen in a minute and see what you think.

The pens are the two that survived the penmaking process, the third blank proved to have an internal fault, which was annoying because it didn’t show until it was almost finished. That’s wood for you. Mine writes nicely and fits well in my hand – I am enjoying using it.

 

How Did It Go?

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The tall thing is Julia’s teak candlestick with electric candle inserted. The tall snowman with the badly fitting hat is Julia’s yew snowman. I don’t always know the woods but I recognise teak and the yew started off as a piece of tree with the distinctive bark left on. The three small ones, with non-PC tobacco products are extras that she bought at the fund-raising stall.

This is the second post of the day. It would probably help you to read the first one before starting here, though you will probably guess roughly what I’m talking about as I go through it.

By the time I had taken Julia wood turning and got home, via queues and a Radio 4 interview on the government’s view on Peter Mandelson I had already done the checking of comments an emails, but it seemed like a fair thing to do to check them again, as this was a new start. Nothing much had happened. There was a note from the Numisma6ic Society about the meeting next week, but I’m giving it a miss as it’s still not the right time of year for travel. Does that make me sound old? That, of course, reminded me that I have a talk to prepare. There was also a note from the Peterborough Military History Group – one of my articles has been mentioned in, and linked to, another local military history website.

Two views of a pencil pot she turned for me. I forget the wood. Note the sides are actually flush but the perspective is not easy to control when using a phone. It’s impressive for a morning’s work, parfticulalrly when you consider she only started just before Christmas.

I wrote the prose section for a new Haibun, which was an extra that wasn’t on the list.

So – wasted a bit of time checking emails/blog and wandered a little looking for a decent Mandelson link.

But delivered Julia to wood turning in plenty of time, did my outline for the medallion script. It surprised me how much of it I’d actually done in my head, and is looking quite good, even though it’s just an outline. I don’t think I need to do too much extra to knock it into shape.

It’s now 9.58 so things are going well. I have now written an extra blog post and  have time to write an article and do my list for this after noon, which will be starting with “finish article I started this morning . . .”

Photos are some of Julia’s wood turning, and some she bought for Christmas decorations.

Skittles and ball. Somebody made the ball for her but she made the skittles.  If you are thinking the same thing as me, you are right. However, it appears, as Julia says, that there is no law about what shape skittles should be, or that they should all be the same.

When he visits in May I’m sure the grandson will love them.

Another Day, Another List

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Badge and fob of the Cyclis’s Touring Club – probably 1920s or 1930s.

Before going to bed last night I wrote a list of five things I had to do this morning. Number 1 was read the comments on the blog and Number 2 was to read my emails. The first one was additionally noted (Once) and the second was noted as  (Twice – start and finish). That is intended to streamline my time at the desk by stopping me constantly going backwards and forwards to check emails and comments. I never get anything that needs an instant response so this seems sensible.

The ill-fated list – note the dental appointment was 10 minutes too soon for humour

Number 3 is to get the script done for talk I’m giving at the Numismatic Society and Number 4 to write another article for the Facebook page. There has been a temporary glitch and nothing has been posted for a couple of weeks even though I had sent something in. I thought it was because he was busy with something else, and he thought I ‘d  stopped writing. In fact there was an article in his email box which he hadn’t spotted. Normally I would have written to check but I knew he was busy and he’s a volunteer so I didn’t want to start chasing him with questions. When the kids played rugby I was  given a regional prize for my work as a coordinator of volunteers, so I like to show appreciation and a light touch. It used to annoy me immensely when people tried to treat volunteers as employees. Particularly when they were people who quite clearly not fit to employ people. But I digress.

Shopping List – note the reference to Rat is an abbreviation of Ratatouille

Number 5 is to write a blog post, which I just did.

I also have to get Julia to wood turning and pick her up again. It’s now time to eat breakfast so I’d better get that done.

The numbering system could do with some work as I seem to have missed those important bits out, but it’s getting there.

Note that his only occupies the time until lunch. I should have added “Make plans for pm” to the list.

List v2

The first two were photos that cropped up when I searched for “lists”. Why is cyclists easier to find than “list”. I found lists by searching for “list”. It’s a whole new subject . . .

For the second post of the day, and the result of my planning, try here.