Highlight of My Day
Highlight of my Sunday
She’s standing in the doorway of the shed. Behind her the sky is a featureless grey slab, the back yard is the dull greens and browns of dormant plant life. “What are you doing?” she asks. There is exasperation there and a lot of bemusement.I’m sitting a little way into the shed. An off-cut of marine ply is on the floor directly in front of me. I’m surrounded by flecks, strips, little wedges, rectangles and arcs of cardboard cut from boxes. There are the improvised tools and construction aids, mostly chosen for their heaviness, pointiness or cutting ability (And the glue! The most important ingredient!). Amidst this mess are are the fruits of my labour; the many neat polygons of cardboard, the bottomless box and five smoothly, arched quadrants that will form the load bearing centre of the construction. The concrete is, of course, bitterly cold. The two pizza boxes I’m sitting on keep my bum from freezing, but not from going numb. My fuzzy hat, complete with ear flaps, is far too big for my head. I have to raise the leading edge of my hat with a fingerless gloved hand to look up at her.“It’s getting there…” I say, trying to convince us both.She looks like she is going to say more. A lot more. But then she says, ‘ok,’ and leaves me to it.
I spent another hour on it before going back inside. It really was the highlight of my Sunday because I could tell I would get it done, that it would be at least interesting and that Birgit was amused.The next couple of days were busy, so I could only get to my project in brief bursts; on one day, just enough time to get the lip of the box formed, glued and clamped. Another, finalising the cutting and fitting of the strips along the bow. Thursday night was hectic; I had to keep going until midnight to get the last of the gluing done, to make the oars and fix them into place.Here is a picture of the final product, which was worn to the trivia night on the Friday following the Sunday.
And! Here is our table group. The theme for the night was “Diamonds”. I will leave it to the reader to decipher how we interpreted this theme.
Lastly, I won the “Mr Squiggle” drawing competition on the night! Ok, it was a tie. (.… or, um… a draw??)
She’s standing in the doorway of the shed. Behind her the sky is a featureless grey slab, the back yard is the dull greens and browns of dormant plant life. “What are you doing?” she asks. There is exasperation there and a lot of bemusement.I’m sitting a little way into the shed. An off-cut of marine ply is on the floor directly in front of me. I’m surrounded by flecks, strips, little wedges, rectangles and arcs of cardboard cut from boxes. There are the improvised tools and construction aids, mostly chosen for their heaviness, pointiness or cutting ability (And the glue! The most important ingredient!). Amidst this mess are are the fruits of my labour; the many neat polygons of cardboard, the bottomless box and five smoothly, arched quadrants that will form the load bearing centre of the construction. The concrete is, of course, bitterly cold. The two pizza boxes I’m sitting on keep my bum from freezing, but not from going numb. My fuzzy hat, complete with ear flaps, is far too big for my head. I have to raise the leading edge of my hat with a fingerless gloved hand to look up at her.“It’s getting there…” I say, trying to convince us both.She looks like she is going to say more. A lot more. But then she says, ‘ok,’ and leaves me to it.
I spent another hour on it before going back inside. It really was the highlight of my Sunday because I could tell I would get it done, that it would be at least interesting and that Birgit was amused.The next couple of days were busy, so I could only get to my project in brief bursts; on one day, just enough time to get the lip of the box formed, glued and clamped. Another, finalising the cutting and fitting of the strips along the bow. Thursday night was hectic; I had to keep going until midnight to get the last of the gluing done, to make the oars and fix them into place.Here is a picture of the final product, which was worn to the trivia night on the Friday following the Sunday.
And! Here is our table group. The theme for the night was “Diamonds”. I will leave it to the reader to decipher how we interpreted this theme.
Lastly, I won the “Mr Squiggle” drawing competition on the night! Ok, it was a tie. (.… or, um… a draw??)
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