Back to work

Fed up with all this gratuitous holidaying, I decided it was time to get back to work. It's all very well for people with jobs, who get paid leave at this time of year, but if you're self-employed you only get paid if you work, so unless there's something more important to take up your time (like morris dancing, for instance) you might as well be earning a living.

I'm in the middle of repairing at least 3 woven seats at the moment. There's the big ongoing project of course - The World's Biggest And Slowest Double-Panelled Cane Sofa - and I keep trying to do bits on this so that eventually it will be finished. This one is taking somewhat longer than I suggested to my long-suffering client when I took on the job, and I'm feeling suitably guilty about it. So I'm now trying to clear the decks and get all the smaller ones out of the way, so that I can concentrate on the big one.

Nearly finished the bamboo rocking chair, which, after giving me several weeks of wondering what on earth I was going to do with it is now turning out to be rather fun. It had originally been covered - seat and back - with ready-woven rattan webbing of a type I can't get, and although the owner was quite happy for me to use a different type I realised that removing the framework in order to install the new stuff would involve taking out rusty nails and trying to put back new nails in the very dry bamboo, which I didn't really want to get into, as this sort of thing is a recipe for disaster. So, having had a chat with the customer, and his blessing to do anything I liked with it so long as it ended up usable, I'm doing it in a completely different way, and it's turning out really well. I'm using Danish cord. It looks great. Just a little more to do tomorrow, and lots of loose ends to tuck in and tidy up, and maybe a few bits of lapping cane to replace over the joints, and it'll be done.

I'd have finished it if I hadn't had to go to Workington with my leaky tyre. The nice man at KwikFit discovered it was punctured in the tyre wall, which is, apparently, unrepairable, so I had to have a new tyre. Bugger. Oh well, at least it's safe again.

Above - boats in Workington harbour. A tripod would have made this photo sharper, but I love the colours. It's my mission to try to improve the image of places normally thought of as ugly and industrial.

Took a detour via the harbour on the way home and took a couple of photos of the boats as the sun went down. I really must start leaving a tripod in the boot, just in case, for occasions like this. Anyone would think I don't take photography seriously.