Author: peterb51

23rd December 2018

Kelli is busy in the kitchen, the smell wafting around turning me to jelly.

She is getting things ready for the Sunday lunch that we take to mom and dad’s.

I don’t miss eating meat when the food she makes tastes so good, although the smell of roasted meat does evoke distant memories. It must be like an ex-smoker who can’t forget that post dinner drag.

We had a few last minute supplies to get, so off to Aldi we went. This place is really popular, but any food shopping is a little dull for me. I prefer looking at shelves of glue and filler. However it was painless, and I did find packets of iced gingerbread, which sent me back to my childhood, when my German relatives would send over a parcel at Christmas time filled with these biscuits. They seemed to last ages, and so sad when the last bite was taken, I also got my older sister’s hand me downs, but that is a different story.

We spent the evening drinking mulled wine and watching Christmas Vacation, a real must this time of year.

22nd December 2018

Drove over to the north side of town to pick up an old desk to convert into another pair of side tables. Fresh from our success at selling the last pair we thought we should concentrate on these as fast movers.

There had been a sprinkling of snow overnight, so the temperature had dropped, not the amount I was looking forward too, but enough for me to realise it was bloody cold in the garage.

The desk was quite old and heavy, and just fitted in the truck.

By the time we got home, I didn’t feel strong enough to extricate it from the vehicle myself, so I stripped it down whilst it was still in the back.

The pedestals were in good condition with a little veneer damage on the bottom edge of each piece.

There is a small backlog building up now that I’m desperate to tackle. There are things that have been brought back from Hudsonville that need storing for another time.

Stores always make an effort to dress their space for the season, which then emphasise the emptiness of January.

It has been different to experience a Christmas without the music of Slade, Wizard and Paul “bloody” McCartney, although Band Aid crept in.

The build up to Christmas here has been one that my parents would have liked. People like Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Brenda Lee blast out of the hidden speakers turning the scene black and white.

Kelli dragged me into a place that I would never enter without being drugged or in a heavy disguise. The Dollar store is the last refuge I would use even during the apocalypse. I can’t believe I have even written it down. The only time I visited a Poundland store was to buy a small screwdriver that lasted fitting one screw. So it is not my favourite destination.

I wandered around like a lost soul while Kelli picked up some wrapping paper and a few bits of tat. My only enlightenment was to find a packet of my favourite mints, the ones that dissolve in the mouth. These are my weakness, so maybe the Dollar store is not so bad after all.

21st December 2018

I got stuck into fixing drawers. Planing, sanding, filling, cutting, just about anything you could do to a drawer, short of cutting it up and smoking it.

First thing I went to breakfast with Dave. We tried the Southside Inn, maybe Dave got fed up with my comments on the other restaurants. This was a quiet place that served a breakfast that kept me going all day. The only curious thing I observed were two ladies who prayed before they started their meal. Maybe they were hoping to get through it without anything bad happening, I hadn’t checked the small print on the menu.

Kelli was out getting the food from the supermarket, so I was able to get stuff done.

We had confirmation that the person picked up the two side tables from Painted Farmgirl.

In the evening we had Matt and Brenda (Kelli’s brother and his wife) over for the evening. We played Cards Against Humanity which quickly descended into hilarity.

20th December 2018

Kelli announced that we were taking the side tables to Hudsonville, and also returning the re-finished dresser. My heart sank. We had placed the dresser back in the garage covered with blankets, thinking that it would be a while until we wanted it again. I had then moved other jobs in front of it, so it was effectively buried. The thought of moving a load of chairs, the shit dresser, the shit dresser top, and a new tall dresser that Kelli had bought a few days ago was not welcomed.

I appear to have changed the way I work. I used to try and be a bit organised, laying things out in an organised manner, but now that is all different. Now it is chaos, because during the course of the day I work on different jobs putting them down and moving on to something else whilst glued is drying. This leads to me barricading myself into a box. The garage usually resembles a set from Indiana Jones where every step I take is a accident waiting to happen. This is not helped by my large boots that should have wing mirrors on them. When Kelli calls me in for a coffee, it is usually cold by the time I get to it.

I managed to get the dresser out, and loaded into the truck along with the two side tables.

When we got to Hudsonville it was all change. Every item got moved around. It is alway daunting at the start, with a pile of stuff in the middle, but Kelli knows what she wants, and when I make a suggestion, she tactfully rejects it. I have begun to make ridiculous suggestions just to see what happens.

After a couple of hours of shifting, drilling, and hanging we were done.

A couple of hours later we had a customer wanting the side tables, yippee!

19th December 2018

Back in the garage and continued to work on the shit dresser top. Carefully bonded the repaired oak strip to the top baseboard. Then started to work on the drawer fronts. There does get to a point when I wish I hadn’t started it. The veneer had lifted away and the previous owner had just painted over it. I could not let this one go, so I meticulously removed it with a chisel. Generally I was happy with the result, so I started on the next drawer. Not only had the veneer been lost, but also the backing ply. Now I had two layers to remove. I started tapping away, but the bond was strong, and it was taking a long time. This is when I need an apprentice to do the shit jobs while I swan about doing the fancy ones.

Tonight was the “Friends” trivia night, Kelli and Greer were the “experts” Cameron and I were roped in to make up the numbers. At the end of the first round we were joint second, so high fives all round. I sat there like a dumb ass not knowing anything, they might have been talking Chinese for all I knew. The second round we slipped to fifth, outclassed by other saddos who should get out more,and get a life. The only consolation was that I knew some of the episodes, but there were no points for that. I was really proud of my girls, and I guess there will be another binge watching session of all ten seasons soon.

18th December 2018

I was determined to work on the shit dresser, and get the top done.

I set up the planer/thicknesser and started to push the flooring strips through making a pile of wood shavings on the drive. Things were going well, and I was down to the last pass when there was an enormous crack and bits of board showered around me. I have no idea what happened, but the piece I needed was in several bits. I searched for all the broken bits, hoping that a repair would be possible, if not I would have to go back to the store and find another piece.

I walked up to Dave’s to de-creak his Ergon.

I took the base off and could see the spring mechanism, but there was not really any moving pieces, so I squirted WD40 in every conceivable place and re-fitted the base. Miraculously the squeak had gone. I have no idea what I had done, but accepted the praise for solving the problem.

17th December 2018

We had an appointment to look over a house, this was the first one that I had seen, and it was one I could afford. It was a ranch style built in the early 1900s. Apart from the bedrooms being a bit small I thought it was reasonable. The floors were horrible melamine wood effect, and the kitchen cabinets were painted black. You could also see the lake from the porch, but next door was a factory.

Kelli did not “ feel” the place, and as she started sneezing soon after we left, a sign that something wasn’t quite right.

We made a trip to Hudsonville to check on sales over the weekend. Kelli had brought a mug tree for some mugs she had on display, unfortunately they had been sold. I managed to avoid breaking anything, therefore profits will be up.

I did a bit of covert activity to check if other vendors we having a slow time. We had identified two other booths selling similar things, and from the pictures I had taken, very little had moved, so it confirmed our thoughts that there was a slowdown.

Kelli completed work on the redo of the dresser that we collected. Gone is the bright maple, now the top has been darkened and the case matches the drawers, let’s see if this works.

Out with the old.

In with the new.

16th December 2018

Still no prospect of snow, damn it! That is at odds with most of the residents of Holland who are happy with a mild winter. “But I have told everyone that the snow will be eight feet deep” I explained to Kelli, who gave me one of her smiles, as if to say “tough luck buster”.

My sister sent me a picture of the results of her baking day. Apple scone cake, two types of mince pies, ginger cake, and a large chocolate iced cake. I could imagine what the kitchen smelt like. These are the images that will never leave me, my mother was exactly the same, although she tended to burn things, the smells are a reminder of times gone by.

We spent a riotous evening at Lesley and Mike’s. They had invited some of their friends Bob and Pat, and Pete and Laura. Pat was such a small lady with a big heart. She and Kelli immediately hit it off as they had the same birthday, and so did their fathers. Plenty of wine and beer flowed, as well as some pickled onions and cheese. I had the opportunity to meet some fun people, and another Brit. Pete was from north London and works for Ford, so I was not allowed to mention cars or engineering. However the state of the country gave us plenty to talk about. Kelli found that two gin and tonics were her limit, any more and I would have to carry her home in a bucket.

15th December 2018

It was time to do some Christmas shopping, something I love, well not really, but it is my first one here, so I made a real effort.

I was also looking for something I could use to salvage the top from the shit dresser.

We stopped at Habitat for Humanity to look for some strips of flooring. I had the idea to plane off the backing and bond the solid wood that was left to the top giving it a new surface. We will see how that works.

I spent the early evening scraping paint off the decorative pieces I had removed from the shit dresser, a task of love, or a moment of madness?

Kelli had a text from Lesley and Mike, the English couple from down the road, inviting us for drinks tomorrow evening. That was it, Kelli was off trying on different clothes, emerging with different combinations, twirling around and expecting me to say what I liked the best.

That is quite a responsibility because she looks great in everything she showed me.

For dinner Kelli made a rice soup which was fabulous, I love soups, especially in winter, it sets the mood, and memories of my childhood come flooding back.

It was also the time to decorate the Christmas tree. It is traditional here to buy a new ornament that signifies an event that had happened during the year, ours was of course was the wedding, so we had a special place on the tree.

14th December 2018

I went with Dave to an auction house to look over some items that were due to be sold tomorrow. It was out in the sticks, part of a farm where a barn had been converted to a sales room. It was a rather sad collection of somebody’s junk that they were hoping to get money for. There were collections of old tools that looked as if they were left out in the rain. It was a sad sight. Not much appealed to either of us, so we got out of there.

I continued work on the shit dresser, completed stripping the top, and accessing what I needed to do to make it acceptable. I removed some ornamental pieces off the front, and made the decision to remove the top altogether from the carcass.

I know I will end up putting more time into it than we will get back, but I want it to be the best I can do.

Kelli was feeling tired so to give her a break, we went to New Holland for dinner.

We had to wait for half an hour for a table. We had made the mistake of arriving around the time the old farts get let out of their housing complexes. We sat on a bench like two garden gnomes watching mums and dads trying to keep their excited children under control. Finally we were called to a table, by then we were both starving, and the food and drink went down a treat.