Monday 23 July 2012

Summer sunshine

It's amazing what a difference a bit of sunshine can make isn't it? The world seems like a different place. We love it when it's dry and warm, work dries more quickly and joy of joys, we can work outside. Case in point, on Saturday we sealed the seats on the last chairs for the National Trust outside in the sunshine, they were dry within the hour....


Ready to go back to Cornwall!

The garden has suddenly burst into life, plants that I thought had died in the torrential downpours had survived after all, triumphantly raising their heads to the bright warmth of a somewhat belated summer.



Glorious. Hope it lasts.

Friday 20 July 2012

Whizzing along

Almost August.....can't believe it! At least it seems to have stopped raining for a while and the ground is finally starting to dry. The legacy of so much rain is obvious here, the drains in the road have sunk down at least four or five inches creating regular pot holes. Every so often you will hear a car or truck bumping it's way through - not good, there'll be some buckled wheels I think!

The good news is we have finished the commission for the National Trust on behalf of the Chapel at St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. The first batch of 54 rush chairs that were delivered to us in January had to be finished for the Chapel opening at Easter and now the last 12 are due to be returned for a large wedding party next month - phew! It has been a long hard slog.


I still need to work it out exactly, but we've replaced 14 or 15 seat rails and a couple of stretchers to be able to re-weave the seats.

Now we can turn at least some of our attention to the last show of the season, (one of our favourites) the Oak Fair at Stock Gaylard. I found this little crib at the market last weekend, I'm so excited about restoring it and hoping that it will be finished for the show.


It looks very sad and neglected here, but I've got plans for it......progress is being posted over on our Facebook page if you're interested.

Well, must get back to it, lots to do!

Thursday 12 July 2012

A rainbow and maybe a UFO?

Well I did say that the weather was very strange yesterday, everything from hail, thunder and lightning to clear blue sky and sunshine. Then yesterday evening there was a rainbow, so I grabbed the camera to take a photo, but it was set on video and I ended up with this little snippet of film....very strange, there seems to be a hovering round thing moving from the centre to the left of the film....a UFO?!

All suggestions welcomed!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/former_glory/7551739230/

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Weather and work

I'm sure everyone is fed up of hearing about the British weather, discussing it is our all consuming pastime. But I must admit, I can't remember another time when it has rained so much and been so cool and windy at this time of year. There have been floods everywhere, local businesses losing all of their stock to the freak conditions and trees broken like matchsticks causing chaos on the roads. One poor soul was queuing in traffic in the next village along when a massive oak just fell....landing on his van. Luckily he told his passenger to get down on the floor as the tree struck, both of them walked away from the scene shaken but mostly unhurt. The road was closed for the rest of the day while they chainsawed the lovely old tree into manageable chunks and removed it. The old church yard where it grew looks so different now, it's like a huge slug has eaten a chunk out of the vegetation!

We have been lucky in many ways, yes the drive and garden have been under a fair few inches of water, veg and border plants have struggled to survive and most worryingly we haven't seen our tame blackbird Mrs B for about two weeks now, (hopefully she's raising young....) But all in all the only real problems it has caused is with work, nothing is drying as quickly as it should. Humidity is always a problem when you're trying to glue, polish or refinish furniture so all of these things are taking much longer than normal to do, frustrating, but not life threatening!

We've had a lot of work to do over the past two weeks, dozens of cane panels, a glut of rush armchairs, more chapel chairs for St. Michael's Mount and even a couple of unusual Danish drop-on seat pads.



At the weekend we needed to go to the yard to get some rattan poles out of storage for some customer orders. No problem you'd think, but the yard is next to the airport and you have to cross a causeway over the river to get there. Well, you've probably guessed, we got there to find the water gently lapping 12" over the top of the highest point of the causeway and one car already broken down after trying to get through it! We turned back for home. By the time we had a chance to go again two days later the water had gone down, but only just below the level of the road.

As I type it has started to rain.....AGAIN! Heavy almost hail like blobs are beating on the roof of the workshop. Wherever you are please be safe and I hope you can make the most of the day.