Oh God....... I just want to go to Swindon!

Been travelodging recently, and seeing the rows of Merc's and Bimmer's in the car park full of shirts hung up in the back reminded me of the brilliant 'Comic Strip Presents' episode - Four men in a Car.

Did the Travelodge for the first week of work and wow! What a total con that is; a bed, a kettle, four whole channels on the telly and a whooping 30 minutes of free WIFI and all for only £80 a night, oh yeah, plus unlimited amounts of traffic noise and light pollution pouring through the window (with it firmly locked, vents closed & curtains drawn) for the entire time you're trying to sleep.

The first week became an endurance test of sorts as I ploughed through 12 hours of work each day on about 3 hours sleep, This caught in 20 minute catnaps inbetween screaming outside, noisy drunks outside, car engines, car stereos, road sweepers, sirens and noisy arseholes pissed out their heads negotiating the hotel corridor at 4 in the morning- Fun Fun Fun!!!!

Its more for the safety and survival of the people around me that I can't freely purchase a hand gun here in the UK. 

So for now my routine consists of getting out the door about 5am, upto site for 6.30, tools in hand, working at 6.45am until about 6.30pm then dinner in car, drive home, shower, sit down for 40 minutes then go to bed and do it all again the next day.

Curiously the boats motivating me and i need it to as this particular contract is quite dispiriting work-wise, personnel-wise, everything-wise really! For although its well within my capabilities its hard to believe, based on what i've witnessed, the UK gave the world the Industrial Revolution. The words 'piss-up', 'brewery' and the verb 'to organise' spring to mind, that and images of the 'Keystone Cops' keep flashing through my head - beyond woeful.

Anyhoo..........

I had designs on bringing tools back and getting on with a few bits but to be honest i'm absolutely bushed so i'll look at stuff i need to do on the boat that doesn't require power tools such as the final fill and fairing of the hull which is possible as that only requires sanders and dry-lining tools which are all in the shop.

But for now sleep is the order of the day..............

Get back to work.

Managed to get some contract work last week that should keep me going for a few months, phew! 

However with all my tools under lock and key somewhere near London i can't do a great deal on the boat but i'm happy that theres a revenue stream once again. I might bring a couple of tools back over the next few weeks and start roughing out the window frames, just depends how knackered i feel although i still want to keep the project moving forward no matter how little the movement.

Cheers

Right thats my desk tidy, now what?

This weather's getting me bored, more bored than i've been in a while, works....... well what its been the last few years; up then down although i may have a contract to go to in a couple of weeks which may even be a couple of months long so fingers crossed.

Its just when the weathers no good for boat work and i've got no paid work i start doing silly things like that ikea hack yesterday, even tidied my desk - fuck i'm bored!

Right so today i decided to fire up the gas fire in the shop and bond up the rest of the corner modules so i've something to do when the weather turns and i can epoxy without having to get up four hours early to switch the heater cupboard on to warm it.

One thing i hadn't noticed is all the corner pieces have crept, so some are way past 90 degrees, although wrenching them about with various types of clamps when gluing them shows its possible to pull them back into shape so i'm not too fussed.

Once the starboard sides in i've decided to move to the forecabin and do what i've got to do there so out with the old water tank create a hatch or four in the moulding to maintain access and storage under the berth as its huge and want a bit of that action.

Still deliberating whether to close off the fore cabin with a bulkhead to the height of the v-berth so like a permanant infill then widen the opening to that cabin making it a bit of a 'snug' that would create a huge storage space in what is now the infill bit. To make this work would mean turning the main saloon door into a bi-fold which i dont mind one bit its just not the prettiest thats all.

Then the heads, saw a cracking idea on a Nicholson 35 for sale on yachtsnet.co.uk where the back of the space behind the toilet is one giant curve, this works great as its in-keeping with the current 'theme', that of deco-ish /70's curves. Plus also thought it makes the space a lot more hygenic as cleaning is  easier, for that reason i'm moving more towards a Lavac vacuum heads as the pipe work can be tidied away behind an access panel thus creating a pleasant place to 'hold court'.

It was whilst alleviating the boredom this lunchtime i came across a Westerly Chieftain on ebay with a starting bid of £2k, i sat there staring at the picture below thinking what a great little boat for someone.

Knowing these stout little ships can pretty much take you anywhere i wondered if this is just a reflection of the current economic times and the prices will return (one day) back to their historic norms of £8 -12K or is this indeed the new paradigm of the £2K Westerly.

Ginger Kid.

Full ahead pause.

Have cut the ply to make the various modules for the starboard side of the saloon but its just too cold and too expensive to heat the resin to make it usable so decided to amuse myself solving another problem that luckily didn't involve epoxy or the boat.

I believe the 'kids' call it 'hacking' where you take a piece of furniture and re-purpose it to make something else, there's even a site called ikeahackers.net to display your creations - i had a go but got bored trying to resize the pictures and gave up.

Basically i needed abit more storage in my room but have no room to add more furniture so took to the workshop to cut down an old damaged four drawer chest and joined it to the existing one .

Some of you may be thinking given the nature of my work i should have made my own furniture, years ago i would of & did but i'm way past that and anyway the boat takes up all my creative space at present plus i can't make the furniture you see in the picture s below for what i paid for it.

Still after much faffing about i got the new chest in place and its bloody massive and way cheaper than buying a new unit plus its more than a good use of an old knackered one - admittedly it needed abit of a wax and polish but as always it tastes pretty good when its free, still i wish the air temps would improve abit then i could get on and do something boaty.

................and another

Too cold to do much but heres what will be the sink module: