Day 2170 Letting off steam

23rd July 2023

I just had to get out of the house. After another disturbed night I had to take out my anger and frustration, so what better way than to go for a bike ride. I headed out towards Saugatuck with the assist cranked up to see how fast it was going. I saw a serious cyclist ahead, serious being dressed in Lycra with wraparound visor. I used them as a pacer, gradually gaining speed and drawing closer, but they turned off the road so I saved them the humiliation of being overtaken by a old git on a heavy bike.

My route took me passed rows of pine trees, their scent in the early morning took me back to the German forests of my childhood, picking up cones to fuel the stove in the family cottage that we used to stay in for our holidays.

This was a calm moment when I could reduce speed and open my eyes. I passed, what seemed to be a derelict farmhouse, it must have been because the roof was missing shingles and the area around was wild and overgrown. “Oh to be twenty years younger and a few hundred thousand bucks richer”, I thought, “I could have done something with that”. On I cycled, crisscrossing the roads until I felt more relaxed and ready to join the real world again.

I wanted to work on the drawer I needed for my new desk, I had bought a replacement pair of slides, but I decided to strip the seats from the bench we collected yesterday instead.

Then we had a visit from Elaine who was back from her winter hibernation in Florida. She said she had a project for me and opened up a folder containing a number of photographs.

“I would like one of these” showing me a beautiful Swiss made piece, apparently they cost many thousand dollars each.

I started to salivate, this was a dream project.

She then showed me a picture of a piece that she had in her Florida home. “I would like to make this look like that” my heart sank a little.

It looked like a cheap piece of box store product. I suggested making a facade to mimic what the expensive piece had, but I would need lots more dimension in order to build it. So I made a sketch with all the areas that would need measurements, she was going to see if someone could do that for her.

I did love the original piece, and I would love to make one, maybe I could scale it and draw it up during the winter, this would be a great excuse to buy a loose tenon cutter.