Not able to progress with the JCB until the Steam Cleaner is fixed, and not able to progress with the Steam Cleaner until a replacement pressure switch arrives I cast around for other uncompleted projects that were relatively small fry.
Last summer I had to take a garden bench out of service from the holiday cottages courtyard as frankly it was dangerous. The slats, although oak had split and rotted over the years. Not having copious supplies of suitable oak to mill more slats I pressed into service an old door that had been removed from our kitchen when we did a refurbishment about 8 years ago. I'd cut the slats to width and length and run them through the planer thicknesser, but because of 'other stuff' they and the half dismantled seat had been clogging up my woodwork workshop ever since.
So yesterday was the allotted day to start. Off I went to the woodwork shop when the landline started ringing - a neighbour from the end of our field - a dog walker had knocked on her door in much distress having heard a sheep making a huge racket and obviously in big trouble somewhere. But where? 'Oh to the left of the footpath' the dog walker had said before she went on her way, but which footpath and on the left from which direction?????
Twenty minutes later I managed to find the poor thing - now I don't have any sheep - got rid of them precisely because of incidents like this several years ago - they are the 'other half's' sheep but of course she was out for the day . . you get the picture
OK a Jacobs cross Kent had got completely tangled in brambles at the top of the stream bank, and with her thrashing about had made the bank slick with mud - the picture doesn't do it credit, those bramble sit on a 45 degree slope with the Ewe just on the brink. Well of course I'd usually have a knife in my jacket pocket - ah, went out in it the other day and removed the knife in case I was stopped by the boys in blue - so it's a bare hands job
After much painful bramble wrestling, and trying to stop the Ewe pitching me into the stream, eventually she was free, and ran off, still with a good assortment of brambles all over her coat.
I spent the next hour pulling thorns out of my hands and felt not one jot keen to fix benches
So, now today IS the allotted day for the bench. Simple really, drill the ends of the slats for 5 mm bolts, cut the remaining old ones off and discard them, and then start bolting it together - it's a bit like wrestling a set of bagpipes as there nothing to hold it upright, but I got there in the end. The only complication was that it had to be one inch narrower than the original (that door wasn't big enough!) and matching the slat spacing to the ornamental cast back insert took a bit of head scratching.
But from painful beginnings I'm quite pleased with it - I've just bent up and fixed the reinforcing / bracing steel work that stops it racking, and given it a coat of Lanoguard (this is the hugely expensive stuff I've bought to stop the JCB rusting once it's steam cleaned so I hope it's grateful!)
After Christmas it will have soaked in so I'll give it another coat and it can go out and brave the elements.
