At last ...

... another exciting episode! Lack of content was due to having relatives from UK stay for a few days and very agreeable it was too. Good company and conversation as well as several excellent meals out.

At last, also, it seems that use of a workshop at home is becoming a strong possibility, something that I have missed very badly since we moved here from the UK over five years ago. Back then many happy and some frustrating hours were spent building scale working models of boats, particularly Thames Sailing Barges in half inch to the foot scale - the end product being some forty to forty five inches in length.

There is a local equivalent of the Thames barge in our area known as a gabarre with a single square set sail which were used for taking wine from the region down the rivers Dordogne or Garonne to Bordeaux for shipping mainly to England but other countries as well. Today the surviving few gabarres are used to provide visitors with trips on the rivers with a guide pointing out items of interest as well as offering an excellent lunch during the trip.

A gabarre may well emerge from the workshop at some future date to be taken to our local lake for its maiden voyage. Fortunately there are a good number of plans to work from available on the Web as well as excellent photographs to add realistic detail. Should keep me out of mischief for a while ...

However I am in advance of myself, because firstly a workbench is more than necessary. Fortuitously Lidl have an offer tomorrow of two steel foldng trestles for less than twenty pounds which will make excelent supports for a kitchen worktop currently on special offer at a local DIY shed. No, at the offer price I don't give a damn what colour it is!

So back to making woodshavings and sawdust in the near future and losing all sense of time in a renewed hobby ...

"Oi! Yer dinner's ready"
"Yes dear"

Two and a bit hours later ...