Oct 2011 a

Sat 01 Oct 2011

Steve and Clancy headed off to Uffington Castle for a super simple SCA event, which was essentially a cool fighter practise. No facilities, no food, no fee. Just turn up and enjoy the splendid view on this national monument. Lots of fun had by all. It was an unseasonally warm (and sunny) day reaching almost 30 celcius in London and about 25 at Uffington!  Thanks go to Nesta for these photos of the event.

Meanwhile, Jen enjoyed some window shopping (retail therapy) in London, picking up a couple of new work shirts for steve and a nice blue sweater for herself all for under 50 quid.

Sun 02 Oct 2011

Jen worked on her latest fad of polishing brass. But first, a chemical paint stripper was needed on this little cherub chandelier. Several hours of polishing later and you can see the thing IS actually brass under all that paint.

Throughout the next week we evaluate our finances and Steve does an awful lot of home cooking and lunch preparation across the next couple of weeks....

Weekend 8-9 Oct 2011

Jen continued her brass polishing frenzy, but this time on an ornate 5-arm chandelier. This one is much for fiddly/intricate and unfortunately takes much longer to polish. As these are brass, Jen's finishing them off with a layer of Renaissance Wax to prevent tarnishing.

Jen plans to add crystal to both these chandeliers and then, who knows, maybe sell them back on to ebay. She's just getting much satisfaction from doing these up, but after these two perhaps that's enough, and it'll be on to the next project for her.

Above: "before"

Above: Jen making a smelly polishing mess on the dining table

Above: spot the difference. Polishing has a certain satisfaction to it.

Above: "after"

Meanwhile, Steve's work is paying for him to go on a new Cisco course which would've cost us about £2,000! Nice one.

Sat 15 Oct 2011

Jen has a little accident with a Porsche. 

Actually, to be more accurate, after a test drive she went to close the bonnet and while trying to lift it to test if it was shut properly, the sales assistant closed it on her fingers! ("The car bit me!" she said) After some swearing and a few tears, she went into shock. This didn't bode well for the salesmen. After some discussion and the drive home we decided it will be best to have the car looked at "under the hood" and professionally assessed - well the car is over 10 years old after all. Now the waiting game.

In the afternoon Steve managed to get the new Router installed and working, and surprise surprise our flaky, super-slow broadband is now blisteringly fast once more. Hurrah!

Sun 16 Oct 2011

Early this morning Clancy came over and picked up Steve to go to the Basingstoke fighter practise. All of next week Steve will be on his Cisco course.