Another Lifetime to go

6th January 2026

Happy birthday Dad, he would have been 118.

I was back with John the wood at his barn.

The weather was damp, drizzly and misty, it’s slowly melting the snow, but it’s wet slush.

The countryside is hidden by this veil of mist, spooky, even a photograph would not do it justice.

I hurtled down almost deserted roads, a route I am so familiar with, but there is still excitement, what will I achieve today.

John was ready and waiting as I pulled up, he seems to have trouble with the seat belt every time, but once that gets sorted we set off.

We chat about things we’ve done since the last time,  he often wanders off track,  which is confusing, and I often check him, to get him back.

The barn felt empty, the big steel and wood construction has gone, but a few parts still remain. All my pieces are still on the cart where I left them, after clearing the bench, I set about the first job.

Once I laid out all the parts that had to be glued together, we stopped for a coffee and a slice of freshly baked pumpkin bread.

John’s eyes lit up at the sight of it, I explained what I wanted to achieved, really for my benefit as there was a lot of information that I’m not sure John understood.

I gave him a task to look in his stock for planks of white oak that were 96 inches long, these I would need for the back panel.

He shuffled off downstairs whilst I did my glue up.

I later went downstairs to see what he found.

Without digging down into the piles of planks, I made the executive decision that I would join shorter lengths together, although we did find two planks that were the full length.

The cleaning up of the planks took a bit of time, but finally they were sized and cut to length.

We stopped for another coffee and another slice of pumpkin bread, and assessed what was achieved.

I could say that I would make more progress if I was left to my own devices, but that’s not the reason, I know John wants to be useful, and what I’m doing is keeping him interested, so I’m happy to take, probably, twice the time to get it done.

We finished the day by joining two pieces together to see how they fitted. All the final machining  will be done later , so any mis-alignment will be corrected.

We left a bit later than usual as I alway sweep up any mess I make, which is only expected.

after dropping John back home I had to drive to Dorr to collect something that Kelli had found on Marketplace.

This entailed driving through uncharted territory.

I survived, and with a garment neatly packed inside a bag, I headed back to my warm home.

5th January 2026

The first shop day of the new year, and I can confirm that there was no difference, although some shelves were noticeable empty, the place was the same as last year.

Having done that, we headed up to West Olive to collect a croqueted jumper for Winnie. That puppy is slowly accumulating more and more clothes, soon she will need closet space of he own. 

So we arrived at the address, but no jumper, that is when Kelli re-read the message only to find the person had left, and wouldn’t return until 4.00pm, so basically, a wasted trip.

It wasn’t all a waste because she had also arranged to collect another bed for the little one.

I swear that soon there will be a bed in each room, I think she is being spoiled.

She is getting better at the house training bit, we’ve had no accidents for a couple of days, and she waits by the patio doors possibly signalling that she wants to go potty.

Once that was done, we’ve headed home.

I had to go to Megan, the lady I built the kitchen island for. 

She was the one with the water damage, I had agreed to re-coat the island top with Wax oil, mainly because the insurance assessor had thought the top was damaged, fortunately it wasn’t.

Then I had to collect a dresser, it was getting dark, and as usual it was difficult to read the house numbers. I eventually found the place because of an odd window up in the eves.

It was a bit battered, but it was solid and a quick paint job should do the trick.

We also sold the dresser that we posted yesterday, that was good.

4th January 2026

We have so many gates in the house to climb over I feel like I’m competing in some Olympic sport.

We have to close off the spaces that Winnie is not allowed into, that means climbing over the one to the bathroom, or the bedroom, it’s cramping my style.

I swear that she is growing, and getting heavier, or I’m getting weaker.

She is definitely dominating our lives, but we get revenge by putting her out in the snow every ten minutes to have a piss.

Things on the furniture front has been slow, Kelli picked up a dresser from Goodwill yesterday that doesn’t need too much doing to it other than one drawer runner.

We did some touching up, and posted  it straight away

We still have one big monster in the garage that we need to get started on.

3rd January 2026

Chris finally made it to Holland to do some recording. He came prepared with two guitars and an amplifier.

He is so in to his music, and talks about special tuning, I nod as if I know what he’s talking about.

He is a fine musician, but, as I’ve said before, not alway prepared.

The song he wanted to record wasn’t even finished, it didn’t have a title, or any lyrics, so how that a song?

Anyway I could see that he wanted to try his latest guitar, which was a nylon stringed electric, quite unusual, with an interesting sound.

We did several takes before me. “Billy I Know” stuck my nose in and made some suggestions.

This, it turns out, were good ideas, and added more to the basic rhythm.

We worked on it for about four hours, stopping for a cup of tea.

The dogs were really good, Kelli had to go out to do some errands, or maybe she appreciated good music, so the dogs were left to their own devices.

There was another tea before Chris loaded up his kit and headed home, while we got ready to take our girls out for a walk.

2nd January 2026

Can a woman have too many clothes? In my case, yes.

Kelli has a large closet in our bedroom that is never empty, she has one in the hallway, and part of mine outside the bathroom.

Now she has inched her way into the bathroom by hanging garments on the shower rail. I have to move them each time I have a shower, and put them back, in the same order, when I gave finished.

Even with all the trips to Plato’s to sell stuff, nothing ever looks emptier. 

Often when new stuff comes in the mail, it stays for a day, gets resold, then gets shipped out again. It’s an ebb and flow of clothing.

I had my coffee session with Henry, originally I was supposed to drive to his house and see how the rooms I worked on turned out, but his wife needed to tidy the place after their family stayed for Christmas. I said I understood, the same happens with me when there is a chance that we get visitors. I think it’s just the women that notice these small details, I live in a constant state of oblivion, I notice very little.

It was a fun time, although he is eighty, he is still articulate and creative, he knows his limitations and sticks to them, whereas I don’t, that might be my downfall, but I don’t care, I’m having fun.

Talking of fun, Winnie is all over the place, she is desperately trying to be friends with Phoebe. There is a lot of jumping, yapping and snarling, no blood yet, it will take time.

I don’t think Phoebe understands that she is expected to be the Alpha, but sometimes they both show each other their tummies, a sure sign of subservience, so we have confused animals.

1st January 2026

“ It’s a new day, new month, and a new year, and I’m feeling,……shite”

I think I finally got to sleep about 5.00am, not through being a party animal, but because Kelli couldn’t sleep.

It started when the ear buds that she listens to a podcast of bedtime stories didn’t work.

Each time she switched the program on, it wouldn’t play through the buds, instead the sound came through the phones internal speaker. Kelli relies on this to send her to sleep, so there was panic mode. 

Was it something in the headphone socket? I gave it a clean, but it didn’t make any difference.

I have two phones both with Spotify installed, but she couldn’t remember what her password was, anyway this wasn’t working, and she was getting angry about it. 

I was trying to keep the puppy calm, against all this disruption.

Eventually she found an old phone, but it was old, and very slow, and there wasn’t much power in it.

“This is a great start to a new year”, I thought.

Somehow, at some unearthly hour it finally resolved itself, it remains a mystery.

Now if only she would go to sleep, this is the time I usually tell her a story, tonight it was about my schooldays, I don’t remember how many times I’ve told the same bloody tale, but it did the trick. 

I’m quite proud of myself, I have proof that I can bore someone to sleep.

After five hours of sleep I really did want to drive to Fennville to collect a wire frame that we were planning to fence part of the living space off to contain Winnie. We were going to create Stalag 13.

There was snow falling, the roads were icy and white, it was a harrowing journey.

I found the house, the truck made the first tracks  in the freshly fallen snow. I collected the box with the parts inside, and slipped the money into a box on the porch, then I made the journey back.

Whilst I was away Kelli was preparing a chicken to roast that we were going to take to her mums for our new year feast.

That went surprisingly well, despite Matt making Spaghetti, which he and Brenda devoured, we were confused, but hey ho, each to their own.

31st December 2025

It’s alway an odd day, tipping another page from the familiar calendar to a new one tomorrow.

Was it a good year?  It was certainly interesting.

It did open my eyes, as my reader might have noticed through some of the posts I have made.

I’ve looked through a different window, and what I’ve seen I didn’t like very much. Questions that I didn’t think to ask have been answered and not in a way I expected.

I will start the different year with no fear, I’m not afraid of what’s ahead good will conquer evil, eventually. 

We have lost some good people, but our culture will continue, new will replace the old, and hopefully bring about a change.

I’m sure more deceit will be revealed, but will anyone take any notice? climbing out of our bubble taking a new breath of clean unfiltered air, and read between the lines. 

If only one person stops, looks , but doesn’t listen, and imagine that our entire existence has been planned out, we have no fear, this paradise we live in can look after itself, we have to trust it. No government expert can scare you, keep you down and frightened, that’s what they want, then you can be controlled.

Beware of the words “ For your safety” “ safe and effective “, “ saving the planet “ these are meaningless, and designed to lull you into a state of compliance.

Meet the next year with a state of personal freedom, turn off the interference, we live in a great place, and there are many more of us than there is of them, that’s what they’re afraid of, we have the power.

2026 is going to be a great year.

30th December 2025

It was back to John the wood’s barn after missing a week. This is definitely the time I look forward to, and allow my creativity to burst forth.

John was his usual self, the journey from his home to the barn is when I try to find out what’s been happening, John tried to tell me, but stumbles and forget the key point, a bit like not remembering the punch line to a joke. I try to fill in the blanks, sometimes I’m on the nail, other times way off, and it remains a mystery.

I can feel his brain whirling around, and I feel bad for him, he’s a fun chap, when I say something amusing he chuckles.

He is using the notebook I gave him, to write things to remember, things to buy and names of people. I put things in that might be of interest, YouTube videos, then we can talk about them.

I saw what he was building for the church that has been in progress for weeks. Admittedly he has only done the wood parts, but suddenly all this steel had been added. This is half inch thick plate, with the timber panels bonded to it. There are two units that will stack on top of each other.

I still don’t understand what, and why they are building it. John said the steel was to stop a bullet, that’s the bit that’s weird to me, the pastor is safe but what about the congregation?

In reality it was an elevation device for the pastor, who is disabled, to get from the ground to his preaching height.

The final structure must weigh over half a ton, god knows how it will be moved.

We started on the sofa today, pulling out planks of white oak from his stock, it really is a treasure trove of timber.

He has ten, three inch thick live edge boards ten feet long that must be worth thousands to a table builder. 

We started cutting up the planks, flattened them and planing them to the required thickness.

Although I didn’t get any boards glued up, it put me in a good position to do it next week.

Light snow continued throughout the day. The fine powdery kind that doesn’t appear to do much, after many hours builds up a significant amount.

We had a customer coming to collect the two dressers, so I had to make sure I had returned by then. Bank on time they turned up with a trailer. The chap admitted that he couldn’t reverse, so we unhitched it, moved it out of the way, and repositioned it, pulled their vehicle out and reversed back in. Once the trailer was hooked back up, we loaded the two pieces, and off they went.

Winnie had a good day, no accidents happened in the house, and everything was calm and relaxed, just what I needed.

29th December 2025

The snow is back, and also the strong winds, making a blizzard condition, all day.

It was shopping day, on a foul day like today, but our cupboards are bare.

The store were empty of people, maybe they were more sensible, but there were no distractions, we got round in record time.

Letting the dogs out in snow is not the greatest event in my bucket list, in fact the bucket is very useful for this task.

Winnie is getting better, she knows where she has to go, and we have to be really quick to recognise the signs to avoid an accident.

The roads were icy in places, after rain in the early hours, followed by sleet and snow it was tremendous in places.

Of course Kelli had other stops to make, the first was to collect some puppy coats, and another was a wooden room gate. We need to block off some rooms to channel the puppy’s escape routes. She is quick, my attention cannot waver, or I’ll miss the important signs of a poo being delivered. I used to watch YouTube whilst I was preparing breakfast, not anymore, I’m on high alert all the time.

I did some work in the garage, getting the two dressers ready for collection tomorrow. These were not the greatest quality pieces we’ve had, but we did our best, and reflected that in the price.

I’ve come to the conclusion that anything made in Vietnam, should be avoided.

28th December 2025

It rained most of the morning, not the most pleasant weather to take a puppy outside, and she know it. She had learned the layout of the garden and now she has to explore all of it.

All we want is for her to do her wees and poos so we can get out of the rain.

Now in the evening it’s our chill out time, we watch a bit of tv and hope that our animals do the same. 

Nope! Winnie moves into hyper mode, toys everywhere, she tries to get Phoebe to play but  that doesn’t happen.

I feel our routine has to change to suit the puppy and not the other way round, which is frustrating.

The only saving grace is the number of times she stops, lays on her bed and goes to sleep.

To us, we finally can relax, but it doesn’t last very long.

The furniture business has taken a bit of a hit, but we finally got the matching pair finished and posted. 

Later in the evening they were sold, that was quick work. As far as finding product to work on things have been very lean, we have another long and heavy dresser to work on next.

I finally cut up the to bottom bed ends that have been getting in the way. It was a shame, but no one wants a bottom end. It is the same with mirrors, we have several in the storage room. These would have come with some dressers that be acquired in the past, it seems that our buyers don’t want to see themselves in the morning, actually, I can vouch for that.

Another thing that I have noticed to light quality. There are many “ green” light bulbs that have been pushed over the years, and basically they are crap. Some give a harsh light that is totally unflattering.

For example at the Curragh pup, the light in the gents is really bad, I look a hundred years old, I rush out of there as quickly as I can. The lighting we have is softer, making look like a normal human being. Now what do I really look like? I’ll go for the normal one please.