The long silence on the blog has been partly due to me working on a top secret project. It was Robbie’s birthday yesterday and I wanted to do something special and totally unique for him, so as well as buying him several presents I made him a couple of wooden items too. Robbie is passionate about pens and pencils so it seemed like a good idea to make him a pencil box and pencil holder. The pencil holder is shaped like a pencil and I have decorated it in a fair approximation of the Cross Country Trains colours, the pencil box was much more sober and sensible! I made up for the sober and sensible with a rather naught set of nesting dolls which I am certainly not going to display on the blog – but they brought a smile to Robbie’s face! It took a lot of work but I was very pleased with the way they turned out – I am going to make him a railway related set next.
Robbie got lots of other presents including his favourite aftershave, an external hard drive, a rather special tin of Starbucks coffee, a coin purse and an alarm clock and radio in the shape of Lego bricks. So, he is another year older but I wonder if this birthday has made him any wiser!
Robbie is 'for decorative purposes only' by that I don't mean that he has film star good looks, whatever it is that makes him attractive is more than skin deep. He has lovely blue eyes, his own wacky style and a great sense of humour. His enthusiasm for any new task that comes his way is boundless, but it is not always matched by practical ability! That's what I mean by for decorative purposes only!!
On a Sunday a couple of weeks ago he finally carried out his threat to finish decorating the bathroom. It proved a severe test of stamina - for me! First he filled some holes with expanding filler, he managed to stick his fingers together, and the wall looked as if we had a sudden outbreak of dry rot! I was still dealing with the aftermath of that when he reappeared in the kitchen covered in white hammerite paint, he had set about painting the door frame and got it all over his clothes. I left him armed with a bottle of white spirit and I came back to find he had used my washing up cloths – and put them back! Finally with wet gloss paint nearby he decided to sand the walls with his new sander - we now have textured paint around the door frames. Thankfully after that he stopped for a rest!"
