(Modern Popular Beat Combos are rather lost on me, I'm afraid.....)
Anyway, that's not what this post is about at all.
It is, instead, about bikes.
A couple of years ago, I found an old Raleigh Superbe frame down at Milton tip and bought it for a tenner. I am still (ahem) in the process of rebuilding it for Jackie.
You may scoff, but genius will not be rushed........
I think I blogged at the time something about probably owning most of the rod-braked bikes in East Anglia, if I carried on like that....
Well, such as I prophesied has indeed come to pass.
The bike count now stands at eight.....
Jackie said this was quite enough, and no, I couldn't have a third shed......
It didn't stop me buying this from the tip last Saturday when I dropped off the dead roofing felt from our weekend of Roof Fiddling....
Mark's reaction was somewhat wanting in appreciation of the flawless merits of my latest restoration project, I felt....
(Don't worry, Auntie Mary, I'm not going to say exactly what he said, so you can read on.....)
I will, however, go as far as to say that he came over very satirical indeed.
Now, I was going to break the bike for parts, but Mark got me going to the point that I've decided to restore it just to show him!
Two days and £45 later, and front and rear Westrick stainless steel rims are winging their way to the Parish having been purchased on ebay. And I'm presently the high bidder on a decent set of handlebars, too.
And don't ask what it's all costing, there are principles at stake here!
However, I have to say Mark was right about one thing.
The week before, I pulled an old wooden box out of a skip on my friend Julia's drive. (I had actually gone round there to re-home a lovely moden art sculpture fo her own making, but that is a digression too far, even for my parenthetical mind...)
Another friend, who has a narrowboat, was after just such a box for storage. Texts were exchanged, measurements obtained, a trip to Mackays in Cambridge secured brass screws and ironmongery, and I set about making the box fit the boat while also giving it a bit more in the way of structural integrity than it's original design permitted.
This meant taking it apart, turning it inside out, then reassembling it round a bespoke half-inch by half-inch frame.
And Mark's comment?
"John, you'd be better off burning it and using the carbon to draw her a picture of a better box......"
He was right.
Three days later, I found this at Emmaus:
Solid Mahogany.....
Brass fittings
Interesting history.....
It makes my rough-hewn and hand-made pine and plywood effort look very shabby in comparison indeed.
Ah well, I shall finish it off then quietly take it to Emmaus for rehoming......
:-)
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