Continued frustration and a curio

Frustration seems to be the order of the month. The stain I ordered took two weeks to arrive. It seems that the manufacturer has halted production of the stain I needed. Their reason, I’m told, is that their factory has slimmed down its staff as they cannot otherwise maintain minimal distancing of their workforce. Therefore, they are only concentrating on their best-selling products. In the end, a fella by the name of Ollie at the store I ordered the stain from ‘phoned around various other branches in an effort to locate a tin. Few stores had any and those that did were too far away to send a tin down in company vehicles as there are no connecting routes. I suggested that they could simply post the item. But no, that meant going to a post office! “Why not a courier? They collect.”, I suggested. Eventually, Ollie said that he managed to blag a sales rep who was going to be visiting the Reading branch before making his way to the Hastings branch to pick up the last tin they had there.

In the meantime, I have been able to source most of the parts for the truck and have met a bloke who reckons he can get the particular bolt I need made. Michael managed to get me a small sheet of aluminium cheap. I started on the repair, damaged my wrist and spent two days looking for the rivets. I ended up having a major tidy up. I emptied the truck and sorted and restacked all the wood I had accumulated. I sorted through the front of the caravan, too.

By this point, the weather had become too hot to work in. Particularly, the humidity. I was up early and attempting to get stuff done before it became too hot. However, even at 6 o’clock in the morning the temperature was sweltering. The cats spent most of their time in amongst the shelter of the trees. Arian slept out all night, too. It’s been many a good few years since I last remember night-time temperatures so high. I managed to get a bit done in the evenings when it was more comfortable to work.

Since then, it’s been overcast and rainy, so held up again!

As you may have read on my Facebook page, I also had junk food launched at my caravan from a passing car one evening. Oh well, small minds and all that.

I was under pressure as I am invited to a wake and I really wanted to go, but the Universe has conspired against me. Now that I have given up on any prospect of getting there, I am less stressed and things have started to come together. There may even be a little bit of work coming up.

Here’s a little curio for you, just as a kind of footnote: Have you ever seen a left-handed kettle? It was given to me by a friend, Mark. He needed to have a major clear out of scrap around the stables. In amongst it all was this wonderful old copper kettle. I love it.