Eden Jolly // Journal

 

2009-09-30
Ossa/iery
Tis the end of September and almost everyone has left us. I am riding a friend’s Ossa Pathfinder through the woods. It is so warm that I am wearing a T.Shirt. (For those with a vivid imagination, nervous disposition and a weak stomach I hasten to add that I was also wearing some other clothes, including trousers).

2009-10-02
The return of the Hess.
Another bunch of enthusiastic mars bar and coke fuelled volunteers from Amarada Hess returned to aid with the SSW dismantling process today. All around the sound of grinders hammers pry bars and saws as they tore the place apart, culminating in the demolition of the lean to brickwork, handily exposing a hitherto hidden crack in the wood shop gable end.  

2009-10-03
High winds and a full moon.
 
If you were seeking the perfect conditions to measure madness in everything then today was the day. 70mph winds scattered post Hess debris all over the place whilst the gravitational pull of the full-ish moon worked it’s magic on our collective water contents. A piece of 8x4 OSB that had been pinned to the gable end of the woodshop by a section of demolished concrete blocks was snapped in half by the invisible power of the blowy stuff and flew through the air. But fear not! Fortunately for me, though unfortunately in some peoples eyes, the high-speed pulp composite missed my balding pate by inches.

30-09-09
The Wallysham slam is a real wham bam.

Last few hours of Wallysham before he heads back to Mucklflugga with a selection casts in a selection of metals. Whist amongst us he picked up the Table Squennis Bug and intends introducing the great game to the youth of Shetland.

Briefly in his month long stint he worked alongside the irrepressible Peter Ellis, who, when discovering where Wally hails from, began the repatriation of a Shetland built fishing boat from his garden by gifting it to Mr Sham. Came to the mainland on a boat and left the mainland with one. Strange thing do happen at SSW and that is a fact.

Also working in the foundry was the award winning Chris Bailey, who coincidentally has recently been running boat building courses.
 
Oh Aye, on the previously mentioned cat front, Nutz turned up shortly after Harry set off for China but then disappeared again just after she set off for Venice with a weighted sack.
 
Hmmmm.
 

02-11-09
In search of the cocerknees

Took a break from scraping the contents of our flooded house into a skip to visit a place called “the down south”
Kelly, some board members and me headed with alacrity to a place called “Kent”, where we visited some nice people at the “Meltdowns” foundry and then drove North to London, which I find hard to believe.
Lucy, one of the afore mentioned board did stirling work navigating around londonshire, had I been navigating then after a lot of work we would have ended up in Stirling. It is not that I get lost when driving a car, but sometimes I don’t know exactly where I am, or how I got there, or how the two aforementioned factors relate to my intended destination. A bit like my father when he used to say “It is not that I had forgotten, it is just that I didn’t remember.” Wise words indeed to help any man out of most wife/girlfriend/Birthday/anniversary related crises.
 
Fortunately Lucy kept us in the back informed of every direction change through the use of windscreen wipers rather than indicators and with the constant help from Judy behind her and Jonathon in the passenger seat she traversed the narrow London back streets and arrived at our destination with alf an our to spare guv.
Once in London I briefly met some more nice people with an interest in book binding before heading off on the bus to the train station to get the plane back to Scotchland.

I must admit to being a tad disappointed at not meeting Reg Varney or hearing any cockerknees on my public transport saga, nor did I see anyone wearing even one extra button never mind an entire trouser suit covered in them. This state of affairs, and I am sure that the nice Mr Cameroon will agree is obviously due to the uncontrolled flood of immigrants swamping our capitol city © Daily Telegraph/ Mail/ Express / various tabloids, or perhaps that the cultural diversity that continues to flourish in London giving one the opportunity to bathe in a cornucopia of language, © The Guardian, or maybe it is because them londoners are such a bunch of miserable bastards they can’t be arsed to speak to anyone. © Olid Nordhausen.

4-11-09
Would you Adam and eve it.

Get back from the smoke and what do I see in the wax room but our latest resident, a happy smiling cockney called Carn Standing. I put his cheery disposition down to a number of factors, the distance from the maudlin influence of his home Town, the years he spent living and working in and around Newcastle and the fact that he married a bonny Geordie lass.


11-11-09

Up och nier

Jamie Fitzpatrick, or “Brainy Fitzpatrick” as Simonne calls him, is here for a couple of weeks to do some casting then returning in January to spend a little research time in No 17. Personally I would have done it the other way round, it may not be a tropical paradise at the moment in Lumsden but standing next to that furnace is a welcome occupation come January time round these parts, or anybody’s parts for that matter.

Oh aye, apologies fo the bad Swedish, my "Swedish in three months" was washed away in the deluge, not that it was much use, I have had it nigh on 7 years now and I am still rubbish.


16-11-09
Triumph Gonneville

Sad day today, I was summoned to the scene of the recent flooding to supervise the carting off of my sub aqua Bonneville. I ran alongside the departing truck till I could no longer keep up and stood a while watching the carcass of my beautiful bike disappear off into the distance.

Cockney Carn is of the persuasion that, although the flood was not of particularly biblical in proportion, (yeah, like he’s read it) it was probably sent down on me as some form of punishment for sins and misdemeanours in a previous life. Could be true I suppose and therefore a sobering thought occurs, A flood as payment for my past “sins” will pale into insignificance next time round considering the “indiscretions” I may allegedly have perpetrated in this life so far. On peering into my black black soul I can but surmise that as penance, my next incarnation will not be that of a handsome intelligent happy go lucky Geordie lad that I wasn’t this time either, but that of a fat ginger inbred shell suit wearing makkem bint with the seemingly innate predilection for childbirth and cheesy chips.

At the same time.

On a lighter note, bike shopping calls, a Thruxton this time methinks.



17-11-09
Mysterious non-strangers

Whitespace arrived en masse today to cast up some bronze post tops, the patterns were made by Aberdeen type sprogs with the help of SSW stalwarts Chris Bailey and three others who have used various SSW facilities on numerous projects a number of times over at least the past three years and whose names I really should know by now.

Innyhoo, also arrived today is one of the world’s greatest observational comedians, Mr Trevor Gordon, once of the parish of Keith. I rank him alongside other unsung comedy greats such as Neville Luxury from Punilux, Mick Fielding from the Willus Bnad, ex Dutch football legend Johnny Marbut and last but by no means least, the inimitable Russel Lamb ladies and gentlemen, Russel Lamb.

I thank you.

Oh aye, he will be here all week. 

23-11-09
I ate you Ennery Iggins

According to Kelly, Simonne turned all “Eliza Doolittle” today and curtseyed till her hip was stiff for some reason.
As I was having my customary Monday off I cannot attest to the truthfulness of this observation, however as the statement came from the very person who insisted that an attempt was made on her life by a cabbage wielding maniac then a pinch of salt is perhaps required, and not I may add, solely for the cabbage.


26-11-09
A workshop full of benders.

Don’t worry about it, all will become clear.
Possibly.

A bunch of peeps came out to SSW today from an organisation called “Mindspace” from Inverurie and thereabouts. From what I could ascertain the organisation specialises in taking unsuspecting people to cold empty workshops and forces them to cut file and bend differing gauges of steel rod under the watchful and protective bespectacled eye of a technician into nautical/local fauna themed sculptures. Once safely ensconced in a warm kitchen, the technician then welds the aforementioned bent steel sections together, resulting in a number of portable steel line drawings.
 
The whole day although a bit nippy was productive and most of all great fun, a banterful time was had by all in the SSW metal shop.
 

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