Another Lifetime to go

28th December 2018

We sold a secretary desk that Kelli had worked on whilst I was in the UK. It had taken a while, and been moved around the space a couple of times.

That meant one thing, I had to put on my warm coat and go out into the cold garage to start on another piece. This will have to be finished and ready to go to Hudsonville on Monday.

We had a number of pieces to choose from, the shit dresser, a tall dresser that Kelli had bought privately and the two side tables.

I thought that the easiest one to work on was the tall dresser.

I started by removing the top intending to strip it back to raw wood, only to find it had been coated with a thick coat of wax. Fortunately a long time ago Dave had given us some gunk that would remove it. However trying to find it was difficult. It is one of those times when you remember seeing it in a particular place, and it wasn’t there. “Kelli do you know where the wax remover is? A puzzled look ensued. There followed a back and forth exchange of possible places. So I went back into the garage and found it in the exact place it should have been, in the place I already looked. I sniffed for the smell of burnt toast, there was none, so a stroke was off the list, it was just my ability to not spot the bleeding obvious.

Trying to remove the wax was a bastard of a job, and I knew that there was no way it could be finished for Monday, so the only option was to work on the the shit dresser.

Most of the repair work to the body was done, so it was handed over to Kelli to paint.

27th December 2018

Back to Hudsonville to take the bench, and to take stock of anything we had sold.

I had created graphs to track our progress over the past year, and noted that our sales figures for December last year were exactly the same as the total today, which means we have another three days sales to improve this year.

The beer I had at lunch time was playing tricks with my eyes. Kelli always has to ask if I can smell toast, apparently the early signs of having a stroke. Shit! I always smell that, because I’m usually burning the bread.

26th December 2018

Well that’s that for another year, back out in the garage turning timber into shavings, and dull things transformed into desirable pieces.

We had leftovers to eat and great music to listen too.

Kelli renewed the postings on Facebook to hopefully grab people’s attention, and part them from any money they might have left.

I worked on the bench we brought back from Hudsonville. I remade the top and painted the carcass.

We went to Steve and Jackie Kubica’s house for dinner and met some of their friends. It was a great evening, the food was wonderful and catered for all of us. Steve was proud to demonstrate his height adjustable island unit, well only he would do something like that.

We got home after 11.00pm, but work never stops, I had to stain the bench tops before I was allowed to sleep, as we had to take it back to Hudsonville in the morning.

25th December 2018

What a great day, we all opened our presents in the morning, sharing greetings with my family in the UK.

Kelli made the last of the food, a slaw that tasted of heaven, then we loaded up the truck and drove up the road to the family homestead.

There began the carefully orchestrated use of the cooker to heat up our food and to cook theirs. Images of my own childhood Christmas, where my mother would be squeezing the turkey into the oven at six in the morning came to mind. The kitchen would be filled with steam, like being trapped in a Turkish Bath. Tempers would get heated, like the boiling vegetables, but eventually every thing turned out fine. There would be the ceremonial opening of the bottle of wine, where the cork would usually snap halfway, and my dad cursing the Spanish for using cheap cork, but they were great memories.

We were allowed to bring wine to the Bulthouse table for the first time in living memory. Long considered to be evil in a Cristian home, Dave gave his blessing, maybe scared I would have a hissy fit, but after eighty years his beliefs may have softened.

Although there was no snow, there was a flurry of flakes that gave an appearance of a winter scene.

The food Kelli had slaved over was fabulous, the roasted vegetables, sprouts, stuffing, and especially the mashed potatoes were devoured entirely, mmmm!

24th December 2018

So it is Christmas Eve, and Kelli is in the kitchen again cooking up some wonderful food for tomorrow. I was busily painting a storage bench in the kitchen, occasionally sampling some of the food. I thought it was the ideal place to be. The music was good, my singing not so great, but you can get away with anything at this time of year.

I wanted to go out for dinner in the evening, but when we phoned around everywhere we tried closed early, what the heck people!

We finally found a place that couldn’t give a shit about Christmas, a Thai restaurant!

To say that the Thai Palace lacked ambience was an understatement, there would be more atmosphere on the moon. We should have known when there were no cars in the car park . They also didn’t serve any alcohol, this was a disaster, and we knew it was a mistake.

When my vegetable fried rice dish arrived it looked like the result of a land mine explosion, Kelli’s was no better. The waiter had lost the will to live, and spent more time on his phone than attending to us.

We quickly ate what we could, and left the Thai Palace to fade into the darkness.

The only thing that could have been worse was if Sting and Bono would have turned up to play.

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.