Wheel building

We have been getting out on our bikes as well as still helping out with jobs for neighbours ie painting galvanised gates. Our oldest bikes which we still treasure, needed new rims and we decided to do the wheel building ourselves. We looked at the cost of wheel truing jigs but did not like the look of the cheaper ones so made one ourselves. Fortunately, we always have angle iron, steel, brass, aluminium around and we had a pair of old roof bars too. Put all this together with a magician on the lathe and you end up with a wonderful precision instrument. Then when I was getting on with the main lateral and radial truing, Ian was making us a dishing tool. It was a brilliant project to have, totally absorbing.
Now we are looking forward to getting out with some of our local kids next week walking and biking!

Glen Fernisdale

Every now and again we have a bad day when we worry about what the future holds. We are lucky that we have some savings to fall back on but they will not last forever! We then think about the fact that we are both healthy and can enjoy where we live as lots of lovely places are only a bike ride away such as Creag Dubh where we often come across the wild goats. It has also been good that we have had the time to help folk with jobs they have wanted to do but cannot do themselves for whatever reason. One thing we have done recently is visit Glen Fernisdale which makes for a great easy bike circuit for us from home. It follows General Wade's road from Etteridge through to Ruthven and has a pleasant remote feeling. We last did this 19 years ago and wonder why we have not been back!

Having fun

During this week we have again visited our local hills as well as getting out in our canoes for the first time in ages. We also helped a friend by fixing his swing seat during which time we unfortunately disturbed some wildlife although these cute characters were quite happy running around chasing each other in the sunshine completely ignoring us!

On the hill at last!

Having finished our neighbours sheds, we went on to service a friends bike, and we have other odd jobs to do for neighbours but how brilliant that we can now get out on the hill. We have a lovely area within easy biking distance of us where we never see anyone and it is pathless! It was just so wonderful to be out on such a lovely day wandering on a plateau.  The descent takes us down into a hidden glen, where we sat for a while watching three Golden Eagles, all being incredibly aerobatic.
Looking forward to getting out paddling and climbing too!

Renovating sheds

We have been using this lockdown period to get bits of maintenance done to our house, then one of our neighbours asked us to re-felt his two sheds. When we looked at these, we realised that a bit more work was required before we could even think about the felting as one shed needed a completely new roof, the other one needed sections replacing on it's roof. There were other minor repairs to do too. We really enjoyed this project, as we have always enjoyed this kind of work anyway and the days went really quickly. We tried to re-use wood where we could so that at the end of the day the total cost of materials was under £200 (we bought the best quality felt too!). Our next project is to re-paint old black railings for a neighbour. We could get to like this!!