So little to do, so little time!

"Time goes by so slowly"

Madonna, from the song "Hung up"

I've one word to say to you Madge - sloblock! (Hint - it's an anagram!)

Today I had occasion to visit that temple to the DIY gods that is Lowes of Highway 19 in Spring Hill. All I needed was a single 8 ft length of 4x1, but today the gods were definitely against me since every single piece they had was flawed! Frankly I'm amazed that I managed to get 7 decent pieces out 8 the last time I visited, as they'd clearly restocked but most of it was in pretty poor shape!

Still, not to be outdone, I purchased the least offensive piece and then had to pop to Walmart with the missus to pick up just a couple of items.

Well, the Walmart time dilation effect occurred, and before I knew it we'd be gone from home for over an hour and a half. When we did eventually get back, I set to work straight away (foregoing a beer I had previously promised myself) finishing off the last of my corner posts.

"Its hard to love a man whose legs are bent and paralysed"

Kenny Rogers, from the song Ruby

I wouldn't know about that Kenny, but I can tell you it's very hard to love a piece of lumber that was as bent and twisted as the one I wrestled with today!

What should have been the work of about 15 minutes actually ended up taking over an hour (mortal wound not withstanding!) because the piece of lumber I'd bought from Lowes just refused to behave when I was trying to attach it to the corner post. Given that this piece was far less bent and twisted than the one I bought it to replace, I can only thank the Great Maker that I had enough sense not to even try with the earlier piece!

Anyway, eventually I had the corner post pretty much assembled and looking not too shabby considering the warped evilness that part of it was fashioned from. Personally, I consider this a plot by dark forces to prevent me from completing my work, but I am not so easily deterred!

It was during this struggle that I received my first real injury of this project. Surely now that I've suffered for my art, I shall be admitted to the ranks of all the Great Masters, but I'm sure they'd have let me in anyway even if I hadn't suffered greviously!

Anyway, back my injury! With the plethora of power tools at my disposal it is easy to imagine how I might have removed a limb or severed an artery, but despite the danger posed by these tools I fell victim to a humble hammer. Basically, I hit the end of my thumb with the hammer whist tacking a quadrant to my corner post. It hurt, and a blood blister formed, so I'm surprised I'm here to tell the tale, but i was not going to let a life threatening injury put me off my work, so a few colourful expletives later I was once again at the chalkface of my endeavour!

Just as I was about to lay the corner post up with the others, I realized that I still had to make some little "blocks" to fill in the gaps at the top on *all* of the posts that I'd made. Fortunately, this was swift work and during the process I had occasion to thank my lucky stars for the table saw again!

Naturally, I measuring up the space before cutting my blocks, but some of them was just a tad too big to fit in the gaps and even a mighty hammer blow from Mjöllnir, the Hammer of the Norse God Thor, would not be able to knock them into place. However, it is frankly amazing how small a sliver of wood I could use the table saw to cut off when cutting these blocks to fit - we are talking half a millimetre or less - all that it requires is a steady hand and a good eye, of which I had both at my disposal thanks largely to the fact that I'd already foregone the beer I'd promised myself.

Anyway, about 30 minutes later, all the blocks were in, and I'd even managed to pin punch the tacks on the quadrants ready for filling tomorrow.

Just as I decided to call it quits for the day, a Fedex truck turned up bearing my wood preserver that I ordered last week. Hurrah! Well, mostly hurrah - turns out I didn't order quite as much as I'd envisaged - I hope it's enough!

Anyway, to cut a long story long, I didn't seem to achieve much today before time ran out, but as Roy Walker would say "I'm back in play" - ok, he'd say "You're back in play" but you get the drift!