14th October 2025
It was a wonderful drive down to pick up John the wood from his home in Wyoming, the trees were starting to change into the autumn colours.
That is one thing that I love to see are all the maples in their golds and reds, it makes going through the black and whites of winter bearable.
Kelli had packed me a lunch, consisting of a sourdough roll with pepperoni in, an apple, and some small biscuits.
Now I have a weakness, that is, if I know there is food close by, I will eat it, if not, it will tempt me until I do. So most of the food had gone before I got out of Holland.
John was his old self, starting a conversation then forgetting what he was talking about. It’s like playing a game of “Guess the next line”. I usually respond with a “Um” or “Mmmm” that serves the purpose.
He did say that he tidied the shop, and that was evident the moment the door was opened.
The tidy wave also went into the basement where now you can walk without tripping over stuff.
The material that I wanted for the project was white oak of which he had an amazing stash.
He pulled out a few planks, just to check the quality, it was good, I needed eight planks.
Carrying the first few up the stairs I forgot to duck, as the thump resonated through my skull, John warned me to watch my head, thanks mate.
Then it was cutting, planing, thicknessing, and cutting to width, this was great fun, I could spend days doing all that, and I think John enjoys being involved.
By the time I had to get him back home I had glued up most of the middle sections of the chair.
I had taken a model of the finished design with me to show him the stages we would go through, it was a lot easier than trying to explaining it.
I had arranged to pick up an Apple ProTower from someone on Marketplace, the address given was Grandville, I had no idea where that was in relation to John’s house.
I punched it in to the GPS, and up came 4 minutes.
I had over forty minutes to kill. I decided to look for a coffee shop, could I find one on one of the busiest road in Grandville? Not for several miles.
I got to the place right on time, it was a small business centre and warehouse, Leyland, the chap was there to meet me. He deals with old computers, and he does pretty well with them.
After going over all the modifications and additions he did to it, we loaded it into the back of the truck, and I headed home.
I certainly had been busy, and I was still covered in sawdust when I pulled into our driveway.
Another Lifetime to go 