A Busy Weekend

Bridgit went away with work friends on a fishing weekend to the Bay of Islands, so I was on full-time child minding duties. Work on the kayak was restricted to a few minutes here and there tidying up the runs and lumps in the resin from when I taped the forward end of the boat. At least its ready for the aft end to be taped, and I'll try had to make a neater job of it. Advice I've read, and now have experience to trust and emphatically repeat is 'epoxy is a nightmare to sand, keep it neat and tidy in the first place, its way easier than cleaning up afterwards.'

The previous weekend we bought half-a-dozen strawberry plants for Sam to look after. On Saturday we went out to buy some timber to make a planter, some compost to plant them up into, and some straw to mulch them with. We got everything but the straw. I bought 150x19mm fence palings 1.2m long and some 40x60mm wooden pegs, 600mm long. I kept the design simple and got Sam involved marking and drilling the clearance holes for the nails, a bit of nailing (but he's a lousy aim) an generally letting him know what was being done at each stage and why. He got busy with friends in the afternoon so we didn't get the strawberries planted until Sunday evening when the sun was off them.

On Sunday morning we went over to Takapuna so Sam could pick up a library book he'd reserved. We took a mooch around the market while we were there, and I found a gem on a second-hand tool store. I got a curved sole spoke shave for $20, in good rust free condition. They are $87 new, and I was reluctant to spend that much on a tool that won't see huge amounts of use. I cleaned and sharpened it and gave it a try. All seems well and it should be good for shaping the cockpit hole one I get the deck on in about a week's time.