Another day,another dollar

Friday...scaf up, boards and finial mounted, scaf down, jobs a good un.... so now I'm having a beer and enjoying the jubilee celebrations of Lizzie and Phil the Greek, god bless em!

The twangs the thang

After my musical equivalent of outing I have been musing on times past resulting in lots of googling of guitars I have owned and played. My default setting instrument was always a Les Paul custom but for style and sound I loved my Gretsch 6120. I picked my 1959 issue Gretsch for a couple of hundred quid and for several years it was never far from my side. Made famous by the likes of Eddie Cochran the Gretsch was perfect for the  punkabilly  I played for awhile but as my musical tastes led to a heavier and louder sound its semi acoustic nature caused problems.I love controlled feedback but the Gretsch when played through my mesa boogie running a Marshall stack was a continual sonic battle. Now older and not much wiser I have considered the sin of buying back my guitars as a fun investment as a good 6120 will fetch over £10000. The old me would hate that so perhaps in honour of times gone by I'll leave such guitars in the hands of those who would do them justice.

Half baked

The front and back  (never a good looking bit of the house but now slightly better) of the main house are now finally lime rendered and so the next stage of work the repairing, rendering and repotting? of the chimney stacks can begin. After that the boring, messy but much needed lime washing can get underway if  hopefully we get a bit of a decent and work friendly summer. Add the aforementioned to the gate lodge being near completion and this project is 50% complete and so my merry bunch of slightly retarded scousers (myself being the daftest) only have two years to go....great stuff!

Busy bees

I suppose I should be happy that my invading bees are doing a good job on the many fruit trees I have scattered around the place. Honey from different plants is supposed to have a distinctive taste,  I wonder what honey from my welsh poppies tastes like?

Sweet as honey

Walking down the drive to the gate lodge yesterday I became aware of an approaching noise that I couldn't quite recognise.The appearance of a rapidly approaching cloud of bees soon made my pondering the source of the noise moot...bees bloody thousands of them (or is that zulus?)...do you run or stand still...or is that bears?....sod it, run! a tactical retreat only you understand. My neighbouring farmer is also a part time apiarist and so a call soon had him trying to entice the now oak tree ensconced bees into a honey filled hive for transport to a more thud free zone but as yet they seem to wish to buzz around me....I don't even like honey!

Chicken delicious

Today is my youngest daughters 3rd birthday....you could not wish to meet a sweeter, kinder creature , happy birthday to the littlest princess OTW.

Do the bop

How I spent my teenage years......can't play like that now and the hair is long gone!

Off to work

On a rainy day (lots lately) my workshop is a good place to be....we all have to work.

Dad and Lad

My neighbour drives the above tractor, my boy and I the ones below...who says size matters?

Happy birthday boy

My boy was one this week....he's a very good boy.

New post

Despite the deluge of biblical proportions we have been subjected to this last week the next sections of my pillars where fitted on Friday. The driving rain and three quarter ton blocks made for an interesting time....now we need to cut the stone for the tops make good the wall and design the gates and etc etc!

small steps

We mounted the first of the woodwork on the gate lodge this week....another step closer to the end  thank goodness.

Hanging around

I spent this morning in my local masons yard signing off the next section of my gate pillars. The mason is a nice chap and lets me hang around a bit in an attempt to improve my own meagre skills by observation and proximal osmosis ( I just made that up).....supporting local tradsmen is what its all about.

Fruit no veg

As shown my cherry,damson and pear trees are in full blossom so a fruit filled summer beckons, now if the quince,apple and medlar come good then I'm well set, like my jam I hope.