Christmas 2010

Well is Christmas and snowing again. 1 year on and a lot has happened so I thought is would be good to recap on a few of the achievements this year.

So this year then, well we've built a shed..Described as:

• "the poshest shed in Basse-Normandie!" Review by A Taste of Garlic
• "a frankly fantastic garden office" Review by Shedworking

And the house:

• Put in the first floor oak beams and floor board
• Made and fitted the rest of the windows
• Built the internal walls downstairs
• Connected the electricity
• Plumbed and fitted the downstairs bathroom
• Dug and installed the fosse and pumping station
• Built the laundry
• lined the chimney and fitted the Esse
• Lined and insulated the kitchen walls
• Rebuilt various sections of stone wall
• Made two bathroom cabinets, a kitchen table, one internal door and three workbenches.
• All the other stuff to enable the above....

Not sure whether that sounds a lot or a little, but either way its been a lot of work. Added to that of course there has been all the other administrative stuff associated with moving to a new Country and settling two young children into the local schools.......

Well there's plenty more to do, so after Christmas it's back to the grindstone

Bench2

So here it is my new workbench. Its a little more expedite than Julia's but hey its made up of all the bits of wood I had lying around. That said its fully functional and everything is easily to hand, bench peg, hammers and the skin under the bench is made from Colin Slingsby's old poof (I kid you not).

And I've even started using it. I have to say it is lovely to have a workspace of my own. Recently I'v been using Julia's bench and its very difficult since everyone arranges their tools differently and then when you come back everything is in a different place! Its also fair to say that Julia was even less happy with the arrangements than me. Still peace descends once more as we each have our own bench......and relax. 

While I was looking round for a set of tools and splitting up some of the spare tools on Julia's bench, I came across a few little treasures  which I have re-furbished. The set shown below were given to be by a very good friend before we left for France. There was a good few boxes of tools including the ones below. The hammer  I've made a new shaft for in ash, and looks and works great. Incidentally the ash came from a broken axe handle so even that was "recuperated". The pliers have been lovingly re-polished (using the polishing motor given to me at the same time) and look fab too. They have a lovely fine point unlike the modern ones you buy today. 

My dad was a great one for finding old tools and repairing them, in fact his favourite screwdriver he found in a skip! He found the process of taking something unused and making is useful again very satisfying and I have to say I have too.

And here is the start of my pendant. Its obviously a work in progress but I thinks it's going to work out alright

I'll post the finished article on my next post and you can judge for yourself.

And here is one I made (much) earlier modelled by my lovely daughter