You know that thing we all have to do that drives us mad and frustrates the hell out of us? - yes you do... that "work thing"... the thing that gets in the way of being able to control your own lives and do what you want, when you want to.
In recent years, I've changed jobs (accidentally) from working in IT (which I hated by the way) to vintage fairground restorations - Yes I know it's quite a segway but sometimes things just happen. To cut a long story short, my boss has his finger in a few pies and the fairground business needed some help to meet a deadline delivering 3 rides for Dreamland down in Margate last year. SO, I got roped into help out and never left.
It's actually great fun - most of the time... none of the office politics I used to have to endure, or stroppy customers standing over me, waiting for me to fix their problem. MOST of the time it's also quite rewarding when you get something working, re-engineered or simply painted all nice and shiny. Take the car here:
I'm currently working my way through 11 of them... They're part of a 1930s Brooklands speedway racing track ride and all in a similar state of distress - having spent the last 20 years in a field!
The body's have now been stripped and repaired and recently my dad and niece (they work together) sprayed 1 as a trial for us
As I'm sure you'll agree, it looks very good now - but boy does it take along time and a lot of processes to get it to this stage..
It's quite rewarding usually but today, we discovered we have a ridiculous deadline to have the entire ride completed by - i.e., the 1st July.... now this is bad enough but what ALSO has to be completed and installed is another ride, that we've barely started working on - this one for the middle of May.
Andy is helping out when he can but he already has 2 other jobs... there's only 2 people at work with me and we already work flat out all day... SO as you might imagine, I'm rather miffed at the "deadline" - it's stolen my spring and summer completely in effect... as I'll either be putting in stupid hours OR be too knackered to actually do/think about anything else... and for what? - the basic salary with no overtime or bonuses.
You can see why we NEED to get a narrow boat and slow down our pace of life... Thank goodness we have finally had the nerve to get the thing ordered - if we live long enough, we might actually be able to spend a weekend on the boat pottering about and enjoying life again come the winter.
End of moan...
ON the plus side, I've found a local (ish) boat painter and he'll hopefully come up with a price soon. As much as I'd like to do the paint job ourselves - as it'll be it's first one, having it done by a professional might make subsequent ones easier to do AND look better.
I'll report back when I find out - meanwhile, it's a soak in the bath and episode of Dad's Army on the laptop for me.
Until next time...
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