Hi Folks!
This is your correspondent relaxing at The Commercial in London, an interesting pub:
Not at all like the old pubs of Keighley where I started drinking beer. The Boltmakers Arms, The Friendly, The Volunteers, The Gardeners, The Lord Rodney. Ah, those past teenage days of Timothy Taylor’s ale and headaches.
The woody highlight of our trip to The Smoke (AKA London) was another visit to the Geffrye Museum. In one of the period room settings was a stunning oak table with a set of 6 joint stools.
Sorry about the lousy picture, it’s not a brightly lit place The Geffrye, but well worth a visit, with a beautifully calm herb garden (well more like the size of about 4 allotments) at the back. I liked this green window:
But, back to the joint stools. We met up with my son Will in London, over from Brooklyn, and he brought with him Peter Folansbee’s new book Make a Joint Stool from a Tree. An excellent book. I will be making a joint stool using the guidance in said book and I already have the green oak lined up. Unfortunately, I have now got a bit of a thing going about these stools and I’ve gone and ordered another book:
This has a whole section on period joint stools, and further along some chair leg turnings which are uniquely Yorkshire, so I may be using them as a base for the stool legs. One of these stools would look well in Skipton Castle or indeed in any other castle which is short of furnishings.
We did quite a lot of culture in London (That’s what London is for innit? -Ed) including a visit to 18 Folgate Street, Dennis Severs’ House. If you visit London, and don’t visit anywhere else, visit this house – cost £10, you can’t take photos or speak. It is an experience in warping of reality, history and your senses that you will not forget. And, a great bonus, you can have a pint of Meantime beer in The Commercial afterwards.
We also did some mudlarking too. My brother-in-law lives in Deptford in what was once the naval victualling yards, quite near to Drake’s Steps
Hardly now in fit condition for a queen to ascent prior to knighting her circumnavigator. When I went out for a walk on the Saturday the prospects for mudlarking were rather off-putting:
A fine coat of silt over everything. But by Sunday morning propspects were much better:
London is so old the flotsam and jetsam are very diverse. anything from printed circuit boards to flint arrow heads (I searched for the latter but didn’t find any). The oldest natural thing I found was a fossilised sea urchin, the oldest man made thing also flint, with a hole in it, but unrecognisable (by me at least), I think I’ll have it as a charm. It was a good Sunday morning out for all the family:
From here you can see the three-masted Cutty Sark tea clipper which was due to open a couple of days later
On the Monday we saw the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery practicing for a royal salute as the queen shall have been re-opening the Cutty Sark after long and extensive refurbishment.
Typically, as it started raining in Greenwich we headed indoors, and both father and son’s beer noses detected a mash in progress – hah, it was the aforementioned Old Brewery who produce Meantime bitter beer (Geddit Greenwich meantime?)
Well it was back to work on Tuesday and it’s been a rather wet week, to say the least. Tuesday wasn’t bad, in fact Theo and I dined in the luxurious outdoor canteen in Strid Wood, with view of nesting Mergansers. Theo finished off his coat rack with double wellington rack – rather impressive I’m sure you’ll agree.
It is surrounded by this week’s paying project – 4 off 8 foot bike racks for The Cavendish Pavilion. I was working outside The Bodgery, and it was a very pleasant change, the sun even shone a bit.
By Wednesday the weather had turned nasty and I had a course running with a NE wind gusting rain into the bodgery. I’d advised Bob to wear layers and he had taken my advice – I wish I had taken it in spades. Anyway, despite my almost catching hypothermia, Bob had a good day and we had some very interesting chat to boot.
This is one of the unfinished bike racks, I was in no mood for taking photos by the end of Thursday’s installation, but ~ I’ll get one on Sunday, hopefully with a few bikes as serving suggestion.
The logs for the base were rather heavy, and I bust the guide bar on my milling saw last week so I had to split the first one:
They were still heavy after splitting as I found to my discomfort when I managed to trap my finger between one and the trailer, doh!
Ah well, after a heavy week I’ve been relaxing today, making beer, granola, shopping for brill and jacket lining repair material, planting beetroot and lettuce seeds, launching a new Twitter account (@FlyingShavings funnily enough) and dreaming of joint stools …
Most of this will end up either as fire wood or in the charcoal kiln, but there is some decent ash, sycamore and what seems to be willow, new one for me from this woodland.
Flying Shavings 
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