Author: peterb51

24th May 2026

This is Memorial Day weekend, and the flags are out, we noticed yesterday the roads were very busy.

We were taking things a bit easier today, we both had trouble getting to sleep, so we were reluctant to get up too early.

Eventually I let Winnie out of her cage, and she runs around the back garden looking for a suitable place to have her poo.

There was a heavy rain storm mid morning, the road outside becomes a river, not good to be caught out in that.

There was the visit from the wild turkey community, two males showing off their plumage.

The intrigue over Larry’s old house continues.

Kelli is curious if the place is finished, it is killing her to know what the inside now looks like.

With the amount of time spent, it must be completely different from the old place. Maybe once we get to meet the tenants, they may show us around.

We had our weekly visit to Kelli’s mum for ice cream, and Matt is alway excited to demonstrate the latest pair of headphones that he has refurbished.

23rd May 2026

We had to be up early, there was a big plant giveaway and Kelli wanted to be there.

Well, we awoke at 8.30am, that was when the event was due to start. With the amount of things listed we thought we could be fashionable late. However, by 9.00am Kelli had a call to say most things were gone, only a few plants, we had no idea what they were, remained, we therefore knocked that on the head.

We were able to enjoy our breakfast, then set off to do the run of things needed for the day.

UPS was the first stop of the day, the usual, more returns, Amazon must have a room labelled “Kelli’s rejects” that gets fuller by the day.

22nd May 2026

Still the activity grew over the road, at one time there were seven cars outside, Larry never had that many people in his house when he was alive. 

I was busy adding coats to the oak panels, in total the sofa had taken an entire tin of polyurethane, that four coats on each surface.

Kelli put the dog trailers on Marketplace, and we sold the cheapest one this evening. The guy drove down from Spring Lake. He then told me his whole life story, I didn’t want to be rude, but he had just retired on medical grounds, he explained that he was finding it difficult to adjust to not working. He was a truck driver doing a run to Indianapolis and back every day for twenty six years.

Eventually, and tactically, I wished him well, and to enjoy his retirement.

We took our usual walk around the block with the dogs, Winnie still pulls, but she is getting slightly better.

21st May 2026

The activity across the road at Larry’s old place is reaching fever pitch. The full moon man has been working on it since before I was in the UK.

Recently he has been starting at 7.00am and works until 11.00pm, it must be exhausting.

There are obviously unrealistic deadlines to meet, requiring this extra effort.

It was a sunny day, so I managed to coat the panels of the sofa several times, if it’s still good tomorrow I should have it completed.

I removed the last portion of the old fence, not much salvageable wood in that lot, but suddenly the new area is visible from the sunroom.

I still have the sunroom floor to do, all the maple flooring stares at me every time I open the garage door. I have removed nails from a few planks, but keen to make headway on it I started joining several strips together, this should make the final installation easier.

Kelli was pulling up grass from each side of the shed whilst Chris came over to talk through ideas for some new music. He had reworked the song I said was too similar to another song of his.

This version is a lot better, so I’m looking forward to recording that one.

It seem like a busy day, by dinner time we were both worn out, even the dogs couldn’t stay awake.

One ball that shows the hallmark of her teeth has finally bit the dust, good job I wasn’t holding that one.

20th May 2026

Henry forgot again. 

We were due to meet up for a coffee and a mooch around an art gallery that is just across the road, but as usual he forgot.

As I sat with my 16 ounce latte, and blueberry muffin, he didn’t show. I messaged him only to get a reply that said he was sorry, and suffering from a cold. Not wanting to smear him as an old forgetful git, we said that we will do something next week instead.

This gave me a chance to carry on sealing the panels for the sofa.

Another job I needed to do was prep the front lawn, or what is left of it. I raked all the dead stuff ready to reseed it with a mixture of grass and clover, clover being good for bees.

This take more effort than you think. Whilst I was doing that, a couple arrived to look at the bench.

Originally from Tennessee, they followed the “Lord” and relocated in Zeeland. There were a fun couple, who even laughed at my jokes, well being from Tennessee, they didn’t get many jokes down there.

After they left we had the idea to hitch up the dog trailers and take the hounds to the local dog park. That is a whole logistical exercise of wheeling the trailers from their parking places and connecting them to the bikes, pushing in lock pins and attaching safety straps. Then the next task is to load the dogs. That can be done with handfuls of dog treats. They have to be tethered just in case they want to leave early.

We then started, Kelli in front, that is when Winnie started howling. I was sure if it was because I was behind and she could see Kelli, so I accelerated and rode alongside, but that didn’t have much effect. I the. Overtook and put on a bit of a spurt, just in case the speed was the problem, the howling continued. It was loud, I thought her barking was loud, but it paled into insignificance compared with the ear piercing screeching coming from her inner body.

It was ear torture, but we got to the dog park.

As I unhitched Winnie from her restraining belt, she exited the trailer so fast her lead(that I was holding) almost burnt my hand with the friction.

What followed was a lot of ball throwing, and dog running, I really thought that would wear them both out, but as usual, I was wrong.

The journey back was equally bad, Winnie’s howl echoed around the houses, there was not turning down the volume, it was way over eleven.

Right there we decided that the dog trailers were not a success, they were stressing our animals out, so our only option is to sell them both.

This is a shame, because we thought it would be fun for them to join us on our bike rides instead of leaving them alone, but of course they don’t understand.

Maybe, like some people they want to be in control, they want to be the ones peddling and us humans in the trailers. I can’t imagine that scenario working because one sight of a squirrel and they would take off through the woods, and we would never seen again.

19th May 2026 

John was waiting in his doorway as I pulled up. I have this run to a tee, I can get there within a minute plus or minus.

He packed the few things he brings with him, and he fumbles with the seat belt every time.

It was a warm humid day again, although there were warnings of storms later.

He fumbled with the lock to the barn, he was in fact unlocking it then locking it again,  and mumbling something about the lock being stuck.

This is where I had to step in, finally the door opened, the top was still on the bench, but there was evidence that his sons had done a lot of machining over the week end. 

Today was under structure day. John went searching for pieces of cherry lumber, he always comes back with some other species, and a story of how he acquired it. But that’s John’s way, that what he remembers, and it’s good that he can. When he has found suitable material, I open my book to show him what we need to cut. 

We do the necessary machining, then refer back to my book for the cut sizes. As they are cut, John ticks them off, then we move on to the joints. These are simple half laps that I cut using the band saw, once these are done we try a dry fit, John then attacks the pieces with his sander. 

By the end of our day everything has been cut ready for assembly next week, but now it was time to load the sofa parts into the truck.

I had been dreading this, mainly because I knew they were longer than the available space.

But with the aid of bungees holding the back door in place, we set off back to his home.

The disadvantage of leaving the back door open is that it sucks in exhaust, so to counter that I have to have the AC fan blowing in my face, therefore to get the most effect I move the seat forward so my nose is almost touching the windscreen, not the best driving position. I had to tolerate that for the twenty miles to get back home.

Once I was back I had to find room in the garage, not easy with all the products I have going at the moment, but I hope that Randy gets the upholstery done soon.

Kelli also finished the bench, I took some pictures and it was posted, hopefully that will go quickly.

18th May 2026

The usual, feeding the third world. Nothing exciting happened, the same old drudge of shopping. Although, it’s fun in other ways. You see the same old faces, I watch how the checkout person just passes each item without emotion, or even show any thought about what they are doing. We refuse to use the self checkout, even though the one with the human on it acts more like a machine.

Elizabeth at Nature’s Market is much more engaging, she knows both of us, and generally we have fun with her. Now that’s important, a friendly face is essential, it’s something you remember. That hasn’t alway been the case. There was one girl that rubbed Kelli up the wrong was and for a time it spoiled the experience. I alway remembered the receptionists at the Design Yard, they alway had a smile and often remembered your name.

Joyce, in the Bath office, was the face of the company, she was efficient and welcoming.

All that has gone, now there is a phone number that you have to call to gain entrance, it feels more like visiting day at a prison, or so I’m told.

When a company loses it’s human element, it loses its soul, and become a faceless conglomerate.

17th May 2026

For May it was a sweltering hot day, humidity was high, but if you’re not doing anything strenuous it’s great.

I had a video call with Tim to talk about the mix I sent him last night. He is getting the recording bug himself, and he want to get back into serious music again, who knows we might start doing trans Atlantic music transfer, but knowing Tim he will want to do things his way, typical designer.

Winnie was walking around with a ball in her mouth shaming me to play with her. When she was small, and still had her baby teeth, the balls remained undamaged, now with her grown up teeth it’s a completely different matter. Most balls have been violated, now it’s just kicking a bit of torn rubber around. Some still have a squeak about them, but even new ones I buy, don’t last the day.

Her favourite game is getting me to try to pull a ball out of her mouth whilst she pulls at it. I have to be very careful because as he mouth gets bigger the ball is buried deep inside, surrounded by sharp teeth, not my ideal of a fun place to be.

We saw a toad in the garden, our first, and so far only one, Kelli was excited, but this means I have to be even more careful pulling out weeds.

16th May 2026

This was a collecting day. Kelli had found two dressers that would need minimum repairs, one possibly a good clean up. 

I had planned a recording day, but Chris had other plans, instead I did a mix of the track that Tim had sent me. Well I did several, each time there was something that didn’t sit right.

I was working within the limits of the AI software, the splitting of the different instruments wasn’t perfect. As frequencies can merge, and when the software analyses them it puts them together, so one instrument might have other bits on top. Sometimes I can get away with it other times I can’t, it’s a painstaking process.

Once I reached a happy medium, I sent a copy to Tim, and then went out to pick up these dressers.

There had been storms overnight, but by the morning most of the wet things had dried up.

It was a warm day, my first with short sleeves.

We stopped at the bicycle shop to pick up another spindle, this time for Kelli’s bike.

During the week we bought an additional dog trailer, so now rather than cramming both in one, they had one each.

We managed to get both dressers into the truck, it’s quite  deceptive how big the truck is, we’ve been amazed what we have squeezed into it.

After all that heavy lifting, we headed back where I fitted the new spindle and towing bracket on to Kelli’s machine.

This was going to be the test run, either they would be calm and watch the world go by or they will tear their way out.

A ride to the beach was chosen, each of us would have a dog each. We used our phones as walkie talkies, because we could no longer ride side by side, this worked well.

The beach was wonderful, the sand had recently been levelled leaving it flat and ready for the summer onslaught of holidaymakers.

Winnie was weary of the waves, this was only the second time she had been, the first she was tiny, I can’t believe how much she has grown. At this rate she will be on the bike with me on the trailer.

15th May 2026

The warm weather continued, I was in the garage early as we had someone coming to look at the latest dresser. I rubbed a beeswax polish on the top with a wire wool pad to bring up the smoothness, alway the first part a customer touches. The drawers were vacuumed out and everything was ready. 

I had a few other jobs to do including bending more thin oak strips around the former. The strips had been sitting in a bucket all night which is a big improvement in process from sticking them in the toilet. This went very easy, in fact too easy, there wasn’t even the slightest cracking sound. I did the operation eight times and not one failure.

The time for the customer arrival came and went, mmm another no show.

Kelli was straight on to the next people on the list, clinching a sale for pick up later in the day.

She was able to start painting a bench that we were give several weeks ago. Every day I had to move it outside, then back again in the evening.

There wasn’t even a bit more work to the big heavy dresser/buffet. I think eventually it will be a good piece, but there is still a long way to go.

The sky was clear blue all day no trails at all. I did hear that the process had been banned, but that was on the internet, so that could be a load of crap.