Another Lifetime to go

14th June 2018

A woman’s peripheral vision never ceases to amaze me. I have learned a long time ago that just driving past a house, the curtains, wallpaper, furniture and ornaments are all observed in just a blink of an eye. Today Kelli was out doing errands when she spotted a furniture piece, and two pallets of timber that was down a turning nearly a quarter of a mile away. She texted me what she had spotted, then drove back to pick me up. From the description I did know the area, but even I had trouble spotting it from the road she was on.

There was an old pine work bench and piles of old boards of different thickness and widths, but all very useful. We loaded up the truck, and Kelli was excited with some old painted planks she had found. I kidded her that when I ran all the wood though the planer it would remove all that old paint, she was not amused.

The old bench could be transformed into a kitchen island, so another freeby is on the job list.

12th June 2018

The wedding invitation arrived today, and as expected Kelli was excited. I can see there will be a fight as to who will write them out.

However, I think I will let her do it, it will be better than broken bones.

We picked up a free cabinet this morning, and it was a dog. As soon as we got it home I realised that there was nothing to work with apart from some wood bits framing the doors, and even those were not real wood.

The mosquitoes have been sampling my blood again, bastards!

11th June 2018

Once the rain stopped the lawnmowers come out. I haven’t noticed it before, but everywhere bloody mowers are going up and down. Big trucks with trailers pull up with mowers on them. The other day two trucks pulled up, a guy unloaded a mower, drove round the corner, ten minutes later he put it back on the trailer, and the two trucks drove off. What was the sense in that? There is a consistent stream of garden maintenance companies that work in the area, okay it is season related, but from spring to fall they must make good money.

We sold a dresser that we had been working on since I got here, the lady turned up, we loaded it in, got the dosh, and waved goodbye, that the way it goes.

10th June 2018

It’s the rest day of the week. I managed to sneak out to the garage to prepare some timber to take up to Dave’s to plane up for a table top.

The lunch at the future in-laws was the usual division of foods, meat at one end, vegetarian at the other. In all the years Kelli has been vegan, there are all the regular comments regarding her food choices,that she ignores, I respect her for her moral stand, she makes great food, and I haven’t died of starvation yet.

9th June 2018

I decided to thickness all the pallet wood I had stripped yesterday, and because the blades were new the finish was smooth, and the pile of shavings were high, as usual we missed the trash wagon so the bin was full. I searched around to find any container to stuff the spoil into. I also forced as much in the bin as possible, so much so that when it comes to emptying it into the truck it will fire out like a canon,shaking the vehicle and waking up the driver.

The package was delivered today, hurray! It had been sent back to Grand Rapids??

Since I’ve been back there has been a certain lack of Justin Hayward, I did ask, but received a cool response ” You always take the piss” and “you always sing the words, Tights that you shat in”, “But I miss it when it’s not there” I pleaded, but to no avail, guess I’ve got to endure all the chill-out music that’s the flavour or the month.

The good news is the toilet paper is the same!

7th June 2018

Another thing on the wedding list was ticked off this morning. We called on the place that rents out the chairs and PA system and got that ordered. Kelli also found someone to make the cakes. After pages and pages of Pinterest, we decided to have a small cake for ourselves and cup cakes for the guests. This will give people choice of flavours and they would look cool.

Kelli went to the aid of a friend who had a bad abscess in her mouth, this entailed several hours at the hospital, with a lot of draining and injections, most of which would usually render her flat on her back, but amazingly she came back with a large dresser she had spotted at the side of the road. The thing smelt strongly of cigarettes, so that needed to neutralised with coffee grounds, bang goes my breakfast drink.

This was a heavy beast, but in pretty good condition.

6th June Wednesday

Got down to some serious work today on the dresser that has a buyer at the end of it.

I managed to make the new drawer runners, and then scratched around for ply to make new bottom panels. We raided Dave’s stock, as we always do. He has wood that came from the original Ark, but this time we came up short.

I have got used to watering the new plants, trying to keep them alive at least until after the wedding.

Kelli and I finally agreed on the invitations, and got them ordered. This has been a trial because we don’t usually sit down until quite late in the evening, by which time my eyes have to be propped open, and after twenty-odd pages of examples, I just want to sleep, and agree with anything.

5th June 2018

I heard from Louise that my grandson Marlo had his work experience at HM cancelled at short notice. That’s a shitty thing to do to a young lad who was looking forward to it, and typical of what is happening there. Now there might be a genuine reason, but it was just for five days, so an alternative person could have stepped in.

The weather was a bit chilly today, I worked on a dresser that required some remedial work to the drawers.

Kelli continued to plant flowers in the boxes in the patio, now its starting to look like someone lives here (Kelli’s words not mine).

Kelli and Greer returned giggling after a visit to the opticians. This was the first time for Greer, and as she sat in front of the chart, ready to read the top line, she hesitated, ” I can’t pronounce that word” she announced, as the optician, and Kelli dissolved in hysterical laughter, you can’t write that stuff.

4th June 2018

Today was a bit of a musical chairs day, we picked up one piece from Act 11 Boutique that had been there so long the woodworm had died of old age. It was an impressive piece, but it hadn’t attracted the right buyer. Kelli wanted to move it to Tin Roof to pad out the dwindling stock she had there.

Then we went to Hudsonville to replace a dresser sold with another we just finished.

On the way back we stopped off to buy some plants for the front of the house. I had no real idea about what we should get, we just needed colour and variety, and bags of cow shit, now that’s a subject I do know something about.

3rd June 2018

We had lunch at Kelli’s mum and dads, her brother Matt and his wife Brenda were there.

Matt will be taking the pictures at the wedding so he was sharing some of his ideas. They sounded really interesting, as we don’t want any traditional poses, it will be a free range for him.

Later we called around his house to listen to the song he had written for us that he will perform during the ceremony. It was great, and in keeping with songs he had written before. It was very humbling to hear something that someone had taken the time to write. Over the years I have recorded many of his songs, including one that is on my all time list of great tracks, so to have him perform it will be an honour.

The song will be the soundtrack to a video that I will compile from all the video clips our guests will be taking during the ceremony. This will then be put on line to allow those who couldn’t make it to share our day.