PART-TIME PARADISE

All DIY has been temporarily shelved (ha ha) until the last of the turkey and tinsel is swept away which leaves plenty of time for the other half to get to grips with his new PS4 whilst I draw up the mother of lists of things to do round the house in 2018.

A new year is just around the corner but the only resolution I’ll be making from now on is to work less.  Yes, contrary to the Government’s view that we should all slave away till we die, I will finally achieve what most trade unions only dream of – the 4.5 day week.  Hurrah!

After what can only be described as a life sentence of employment drudgery (with no time off for good behaviour!) I’ve come to realise that at 54 years of age I’m quite frankly knackered. Oscar Wilde was right when he said work was the curse of the drinking classes. Over 35 years in an office when I could have been down the pub instead.  It’s a crying shame.

Part-time paradise beckons.  Not sure if it’s down to luck or an uncanny alignment of planets in my astrological chart, but finally my work sentence is about to be reduced (and not before time!) as I embark on my own pet personal project of downsizing my career. 

Even as I type this post, there are only 5 days 7 hours and 19 minutes to the 3 January 2018, a day that will go down in history when at 12 noon I’ll put down my tools and say ‘that’ll do pig’ before swanning off round the charity shops.  I'll have my very own half day closing every Wednesday afternoon from now onwards. 

Oh the joys of part time working – I can’t wait!   Here’s to a Happy New Year!!

Ah - this is the life!

AND WE DIGRESS ...

Why go from A to B directly when you can get there via C, D and E?  Our hallway refurb is taking the scenic route to completion with a small digression for coving as personally I detest the unfinished look modern builders give to ceiling edges.

Before - that bare naked no coving look

  

Better to get this done now whilst I still have some cash left after my Black Friday credit card bashing and before wallpapering or buying new carpets as I can imagine fitting coving is going to be messy. 

Since what we know about coving is slightly less than Meghan Markle’s ability to make sticky toffee pudding, then we’ve had to call in the professionals.  Thank goodness for mybuilder.com, it’s the rubber ring that prevents drowning in the choppy seas of household maintenance. 

Plasterer has been and gone, plain coving has been added to the upstairs hallway ceiling so no guesses as to what I’ll be doing in the new year.  Let's hope Dulux are having a January sale!

After - plain white coving added

My view - looks better with a border

SUPER SCRIMPING

We've survived Black Friday (or according to the other half, Black Bollocks Week) and as you know, everyone loves a bargain.  Especially me, the queen of super scrimping.  Who doesn’t love to indulge in a bit of yellow ticket spotting when trawling the aisles of the local supermarket?   You can’t beat the thrill of pouncing on a packet of further reduced cheese priced at 25 pence.  I’ve seen grown men reduced to tears in Tesco when beaten to a tray of discounted chicken fillets. 

Not just any discount but an M&S discount

With a bit of imagination, super-scrimpers can dine like kings on a budget Ebenezer Scrooge would be proud of.  Yellow ticket dinners are the perfect antidote to nouvelle cuisine where ironically you get less food for more money. We recently feasted on a delicious home-made carrot and coriander soup that started life as a 20p bag of carrots and would you believe it, I actually made butter from a reduced pot of whipping cream and an empty jam jar.  It’s insane but cheap and all fresh too. How else do you think I paid off my mortgage so early?

And the point I’m trying to make here is that super scrimping can also be applied to DIY or pretty much anything that involves spending money.  Sometimes you can just get lucky as I did a few days ago in Homebase when to my surprise I just happened to stumble across a yellow ticket timber bargain when searching for decorative mouldings that could be used as a dado rail.

Homebase bargains

These lovely Richard Burbidge lengths of pine Victorian dado rails and architrave have cost a mere £28 for all 8 lengths.  It’s a steal!  As I couldn’t decide which might look better on top of our panelling, I bought both lots.  Decisions, decisions …..

Victorian Dado Rail

Victorian Architrave

FREEZE FRAMES

It’s freezing!  I’m sat here blogging with my finger-less mitts on in a bid to thaw out my pinkies whilst I update you on progress with our panel frames.  If I could, I’d wear the duvet as despite having the heating on all night, this room’s frostier than then current relations between Brussels and the UK.  

To keep warm, we’ve resorted to DIY as it’s cheaper than heating.  Last weekend saw a flurry of activity on the panel framing front and unbelievably we completed everything bar the stairs in record time. 

Adding the last rails to the stair panels

Are we nearly there yet?

If you're following in our footsteps and making your own panels, here's how we tackled the recessed frames:  

Having prepared and painted your panel frames, thoroughly check sizing before you apply any adhesive as even the smallest amount of paint can make a big difference to fitting specially if the frames are quite snug to begin with.

Lumberjack wood adhesive to glue frames in place

As we'd cut all the frames at the same time, we used a numbering system on the back of each piece of frame to help match them with the corresponding panel.  Dry fit frames into the recess then fettle down to fit.

Sizing up the frames in the recess

Apply adhesive.  To start with, I drew a thin bead of glue along the back of each piece of frame but soon found this caused a problem with 'squidging' ie excess glue seeping through the edges so in the end I applied the bead to the panel itself.  To prevent the squidge factor, less is definitely more and if you're using a fairly robust glue with a snug fitting frame then it's surprising how little you actually need to hold everything in place.

Draw a small adhesive bead in the join

Lumberjack adhesive goes off very quickly hence why it's important to check sizing first as once your frame is stuck in position then there's little scope to rectify any mistakes.

Recessed framed panels under the window

The finished panel now has a more stylish look to it with the recessed frames added to it.   

Recessed frame in  place

At last, all of the base panels have been completed, frames added to the straight forward sections so now it's just a case of adding frames to the stair section then finishing the whole lot off with a nice dado rail.

Progress after 6 months

  

YOU’VE BEEN FRAMED

I like to spoil the other half by trying his patience as well as his DIY skills to the limit but he’d never expect anything less so it’s just as well he’s risen to the challenge of making small wooden frames to sit inside our recessed panels. 

We’re using pine door stop mouldings (B&Q £4.34 for a 2.4m length) which will be stuck into position inside the wood panel squares with wood glue. 

Pine door stop mouldings - B&Q

I’m hoping these frames will transform the panels from the current plain ‘Shaker’ style and give them more of a semi Victorian look, neatening the edges whilst hiding a multitude of assembly defects.

Panels with and without bead frame

Measuring up the pine strips

So it’s sand, prime, paint, yet again for each individual strip as we’re sticking each piece into place separately rather than making up the whole square frame.  Crazy?  Yes this probably looks like the long winded way of doing things but as our recess panels are not all the same size then to us it makes more sense to build things up bit by bit in case our measurements are not all plumb.

Shop floor supervision of the furry kind

FURRY GUSTAV KLIMT

Tempus fugit and lord knows my temper has ‘fuged’ on more than one occasion since we began making our wood panels.  Hand on heart when I say that the other half’s pyrotechnic pirate fireworks display had explosions of a lesser magnitude. 

Pirate Pyrotechnics

Avast me hearties - this ship has sailed

However, all that is about to change as we enter what I hope will be the final project push before time really runs away with us. Yep it’s time for the big one; it's that hold-your-breath-and-squeeze-with-all-your-might push that will bring about the end of this wretched saga.  Aaaah, the relief!

Adding the top rail and verticals

Now when I say that the end is nigh, what I really mean is the end of the first phase as there’s still the recess framework and dado rail to be added.  In George Lucas’s world that’s at least another 5 sequels, 3 prequels and a couple of spin offs for coving and wallpapering.  No doubt he'd have merchandising that would include a collectable set of tradesmen figures such as Pete the Plasterer, Bert the Brickie and Wendy the Wallpaperer, all with movable joints.  Bequeath them to your kids or sell them on Ebay for a zillion bitcoins as in a few years’ time they’d be worth a small fortune.

But let’s not spend the evening chewing the cud over panels or prequels, let’s talk about cats instead.

We haven’t seen hide nor hair of the ginger menace for the past 3 weeks which can only mean several things – run over, moved house or curfewed because he’s been spotted on this blog.  But God (and cats) move in mysterious ways and it seems that when one moggy departs, another magically appears to take its place. 

Enter the tortoiseshell.  It’s adorable, a furry Gustav Klimt with a chequered coat of gold and black that reminds me of ‘The Kiss’.  As you can see from these photos, it’s wasted no time at all in making itself right at home.

Anyone at home?

Purrfect place for a puss

I'm so cute!

Just a quick 40 winks ...

NORMAL SERVICE TO BE RESUMED

Ah Sofia.  It’s almost a month since we returned from our break in Bulgaria and normal service has yet to be resumed.  Those carefree days of beer quaffing, tram papping and mountain climbing have evaporated into that post-holiday black hole.  Poof!  Holiday, what holiday?  Why is it that holidays take so long to come round but the memories of them then disappear in a nanosecond?  Surely someone somewhere has come up with a theory to explain this (Stephen Hawking any ideas?)

Cathedral of the Assumption - Varna

Maybe someone could also explain why cats adopt you and not the other way round.  

So true

Our neighbourhood ‘Ginge’ has wasted no time in welcoming us back home.  The other half has morphed into a kitty cushion as it appears there’s a secret lap-cat inside even the most independent of moggies. 

Kitty cushion

Unfortunately for him, the ‘I’ve got a cat on my lap’ excuse won’t wash when it comes to cutting timber as yes, there’s still wood panelling to be finished. 

Starting the long stair run

Bottom rail added

If we’re lucky, we may get it done before Christmas but that very much depends on puss.

It's all too much

WALLISDOWN WOES

When the words ‘traffic’ and ‘improvement’ are mentioned in the same sentence in the local paper it’s enough to strike fear into the heart of every motorist in the Bournemouth conurbation and so having put down yesterday's Daily Echo, I felt compelled to take to my keyboard to warn the nation of the motoring mayhem likely to result from this latest suggested project to ‘improve’ the Wallisdown roundabout.

It seems the chimps in the Town Hall basement have successfully blagged £2 million to waste on yet another farcical road scheme that will result in little ‘improvement’ but yet more traffic chaos.  Whilst we’ve all been busy complaining about pot-holes and lack of gritting, the local Council has been silently deploying its stealth mission ‘Operation Gridlock’ over the past decade. 

Haven’t you noticed how street corners and pavements are getting bigger?  You could fit 3 sumo wrestlers abreast on the average street these days yet struggle to squeeze 2 cars through a junction at the same time.  Really?  Well take a good look – Wagon Wheels may be shrinking but pavements round here are not.

Much in the same way as the Spanish Inquisition slaughtered hundreds of innocents in the name of ‘religion’, the Council is killing us slowly with its incessant tinkering on road networks that have functioned adequately for the past 50 years.  And for what?  To create a rose-tinted utopia of streets clagged full of traffic lights, roundabouts, speed-humps, chicanes, cycle lanes and wider street corners to rid the world of motorists who they see as the heretical enemy.

Oblivious to the monster pollution bubble that they’ve unleashed on the population at large through snarling up traffic, (on some roads car queues outlast local pensioners) Bournemouth Borough Council fail to see that what is really needed is money spent on creating a free flowing circulatory road system that reduces engine idling time and road rage.  Allowing more flats to be built in the town whilst not accounting for the extra cars those property owners will be driving around just adds to the problem. 

As the news article said and I quote “the junction which has single carriageway roads on all approaches, is often snarled up even outside rush hour times” but chimps will be chimps especially when there’s £2 million quid’s worth of bananas involved and like the Oracle of Delphi, I foresee a quagmire of bad-tempered drivers in overheated vehicles grounded for hours on what was previously the perfectly functional Wallisdown roundabout.  

BEAUTIFUL BULGARIA

From the title of this post I’m sure you’ve guessed that we’re not beavering away at DIY but instead we're bumming around Bulgaria sipping chilled Zagorka (a local beer) in temperatures last seen in the UK in 1976. It is hot.  So hot that Microsoft’s servers must have melted as I haven’t been able to access Hotmail in a week and nor it appears has the rest of the world outside Bulgaria.   Hey, who needs Hotmail anyway when there’s beer to be drunk, sights to be seen and trams to be photographed.

Oh look there's another tram

 

Bulgaria has swapped the red star of communism for the red badge of consumerism yet the city of Sofia retains a sultry, laid back charm devoid of the brash touristic traps of other European capitals we’ve visited.  

Museum of Socialist Art

Everything that's wrong with this world

This is the ‘Ryanair’ of cities to visit – no in your face tourist attractions, no annoying waiters trying to drag you into restaurants, none of that ‘let’s try to squeeze every last Leva out of this sucker stuff, it’s no frills tourism but in the nicest possible way.

On the surface, Sofia may come as a shock to some tourists especially those expecting the glamour and glitz of let’s say a visit to London but behind its dusty unevenly paved streets and concrete Communist tower blocks, lies a thriving metropolis full of history and culture.  There are beautiful churches and parks, grandiose buildings and ancient Roman ruins all within yards of each other.

Church of Sveta Nedelya

And when you’ve tired of pounding the pavements, you can quickly escape into the countryside as Sofia is surrounded by mountains so plenty of hiking tours available where you can commune with nature.

7 Rila Lakes hiking tour

A challenging hike but worth it for the views

Rila Monastery

Here’s a small taster of what you can see when visiting Sofia:

Sofia Synagogue

Central Market Hall

Aleksandur Nevski Memorial Church

Rotunda of Sveti Georgi

Fountain by the Archaeology Museum

National Palace of Culture

PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE

Ok so it’s not a partridge but a sparrow, a stuffed one.  (Small print - no animals were harmed in the making of this blog post).   But it did get you looking at my amazing pear tree which is now weighted down with 5 lovely, juicy pears.

A partridge in a pear tree?

Not really many partridges to be seen around Charminster (well none to be precise) and if there were any, I expect our Serbian neighbours would have spit roasted them by now on one of their infamous garden bonfires.  Clearly the phrase ‘climate change’ is not something that translates easily into their native dialect.

Neighbours from hell

Unaffected by bonfires, my pears are slowly getting fatter and fatter each day.  I’m looking forward to biting into one of these beauties and can picture it now, juice trickling down my chin and ruining yet another Primarni T-shirt as I’m such a messy eater.  Mmmm – I can already mentally taste those pears!

Our first crop of conference pears

WELLY TREE

Money doesn’t grow on trees but it appears that yellow wellies do! 

There’s a strange plant growing in our garden which has yet to be classified by the Royal Horticultural Society and that’s the lesser spotted yellow welly tree.

This miniature tree, whose trunk bears an uncanny resemblance to a broom handle, has sprouted an abundant crop of small yellow wellies of the knitted variety which should be ready to harvest just in time for the Poole Lifeboat Station open day in August.

Wellies do grow on trees

With a bit of imagination and some timber off-cuts, you too can grow your own welly tree or create a unique arboretum that won’t wither away in the summer drought.  You’ll need: 

• Pre-cut square timber base (post cap)
• Broom handle
• Long thin dowels
• Tester pot of brown paint
• Clear varnish

Making the tree is pretty straight-forward, you can put together the basic shape in less than an hour as follows:

Prepare the tree base – find the centre point of the post cap/base then drill a small hole.

Central position of screw on underside of base

Prepare the trunk – cut the broom handle to your desired length.  Find the centre point of the bottom of the pole then drill a small pilot hole.  Decide where you want the branches to go along the length of your tree trunk then mark position in pencil.  Drill holes through the broom handle, these should be the diameter of the thin wooden dowels.

Cutting tree trunk and drilling holes for branches

Prepare branches – cut long thin dowels into various lengths to make the branches.  Taper the shape of your tree by having shorter lengths at the top, gradually increasing in size so the longer lengths are at the bottom. 

Cutting long dowels down to make branches

Assembling the tree - using a suitably sized long wood screw, attach the base to the broom handle screwing into position from the bottom of the base.  To achieve a nice flat finish, countersink the screw head.  Push the cut dowels through the holes in the tree trunk (broom handle) until they are centred into position. 

First screw base to trunk

Then push branches into position

You should now have your basic tree shape.  Branches can be shortened until you achieve a pleasing tree shape (think mug tree or Christmas tree).

Fully grown tree ready to decorate

Paint and varnish your tree to give it that professional finish.  I used a tester pot from Wilko in a fairly boring brown colour (Nutmeg Spice) but there’s nothing to stop you painting it any colour you like.  

2 coats of paint and a coat of clear varnish to finish

Ta-dah!  You have now grown your very own miniature tree.  Decorate with yellow wellies or whatever else takes your fancy. 

So how is this helping our other DIY projects?  It isn’t but then it’s all for a good cause, right?