Day 2905 A chip off the block of wood.

29th July 2025

I had the best time today, and it didn’t start out to be.

I called John the wood, to see if he was available for me to visit and discuss the wood top I need for the kitchen island. Once he remembered who I was, he told me he was available , I arranged to meet him at his home at 1.00pm.  My timing was perfect and we drove from his home to his barn, a journey of ten miles. I showed him some drawings of what I wanted him to make.

Now the reason I went to his home was that he no longer had a vehicle, his doctor had told him he was unfit to drive and had his license taken away.

Okay, now John was alway an oddball, but once you get used to repeating yourself about ten times he will understand.

We descended the stairs into his lumber storage to seek out the beech planks I needed for this top. First of all the lights didn’t work, so we carefully walked through the dark to the other end of the basement. He was muttering all the time about the mains being turned off. I felt it was safer to stay exactly where I was.

Finally the lights came on, now we could see what we came down for.

The beech rack was full, John pulled out several lengths of wonderful material and I helped to carry them upstairs.

Then it became a bit weird, instead of him taking the lead and  cutting the planks down, he wanted me to do it. Some of these planks were ten feet long and quite heavy.

So with me feeding the wood through the saw, John was on the other end receiving the cut pieces. That is how it went, I did all the work,  getting the plank thickness to the required dimension, running them over the jointer, cutting the pieces to length, marking the pieces and drilling the dowels. I don’t think I have drilled so many dowel holes since I left school. 

However time was moving on, we didn’t have the time to glue up the top, Kelli called to check on how I was doing, and I realised I had to take John back home. 

I finally got home just after 7.00pm, my dinner was in the dog,(joke) I was exhausted, but it was a great day, I had a helper, who just did what I asked, and not like Mike Russell-Pell at HM who would look over your shoulder and say “ What the f*** are you doing shag?” Quite the opposite,

I was working with real timber again.