It’s Half Term, which means two footloose and fancy-free teenagers to be entertained, enlivened, cajoled, bullied, and chased, not to mention enriched. Playing Cheat with daughter Tiggy and a schoolfriend this afternoon, I was thrilled to win comfortably; twice. My delight was not because I won, but because my daughter was pathologically incapable of either cheating or lying. Hopefully she will continue to be rubbish at that particular card game.
A less pleasing aspect of the day was visiting friends and watching their three children, aged between 7 and 12, being totally familiar with domestic chores, walking the dogs in the pouring rain and generally helping their Mother. Less pleasing, because the Tutt children fall significantly short in such areas. Where oh where have we gone wrong?
A more satisfying occurrence was the successful completion of a task that has been outstanding for at least twenty years and probably rather more. One of my few remaining family heirlooms is an attractive and quite old gateleg table that served as our dining table throughout my youth. As a family we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner around it, something that happens all too rarely nowadays sadly. At some point in the mists of my memory a curved end-piece of one flap broke off. It was a clean break and was just the original glue giving way, so in theory it should have been easy to repair. Despite having a reasonably comprehensive toolkit, I don’t (well, didn’t) possess any clamps, which I considered an essential accomplice for successful completion of the repair. The poor, unloved table has been a folded sideshow for many years, so repairing it hasn’t been a priority and coming from the school of “never do today what you can put off until tomorrow”, it has remained damaged goods; until now. Having fairly recently assigned it to a more prominent position in the centre of our Sitting Room it has gradually regained its former status as a table at which to eat. Finally, your correspondent has been forced to act. With advice from my best man, Peter Cook, (a renowned woodworker, DIY expert and farmer) and a new set of wood clamps from Robert Dyas the much delayed repair was attempted. The key question was “what glue to use”. Lee Venables (Master of Barley Sugar, my favourite cafe and a cunning antique trader) strongly recommended Gorilla Glue as being the “Trade’s” favourite. Peter Cook, with considerable hands-on experience, confirmed that Gorilla Wood Glue was the Rolls Royce of adhesives. After another trip to Robert Dyas (having first plumped, in my ignorance, for Araldite) I was now fully equipped to attempt the tricky operation. Unlike Araldite, Gorilla Wood Glue is quite runny, so a few large drops ended up on the unprotected carpet. This oversight was rapidly corrected with prompt assistance from Tiggy and a wet cloth and the incredibly simple rectification was completed most satisfactorily in about two minutes. The glue is solid in thirty minutes, but the clamps remained in place overnight, with full adhesion achieved in twenty four hours. The dear old gateleg is finally restored to its former glory and with a generous application of Lord Sheraton Caretaker Wood Balsam (a blend of pure beeswax, cold pressed linseed oil and pine turpentine, also supplied by the excellent Robert Dyas) it once again has a most pleasing sheen.
The forty seven garden jobs, that have been outstanding for many weeks, now beckon. However, the entrails of Storm Dennis, in conjunction with the Overture to the next meteorological plague upon our houses, mean they will have to wait, until these aching bones can delay the inevitable no longer.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 