Holidaying at home.

We have arrived back home from our trip away. While I enjoyed the time away it is nice to be home and sleep in a familiar bed, where you know the way down the hall in the dark, and you can relax in familiar chairs. I still have over a week of holiday left, so I have been working on some projects. 

• I finally finished varnishing a coffee table I have been working on. When we moved out of the old Night Shelter building there was this coffee table which was awful. The top had turned a horrible dirty grey colour, was pitted and rough. They decided to throw it out so I offered to dispose of it. It has been sitting in my shed since then. I knew that under that horrible top surface there was beautiful mahogany wood grain. Recently I spent time sanding it and varnishing it. On Friday I put the final coat of varnish on. It could be better but I like the finished product. I love bringing out the beauty of things that have been discarded. It's kind of like a lot of people. The surface looks rough, but underneath, waiting to be released is a beautiful person. We will use the table either at the Night Shelter or Church.
• I spent most of Friday in my home office doing some tidying up and sorting out. There is a lot more to do, but it has been good to do that, maybe I will start the working year more organised. 
• We have begun to do some renovation of the backdoor entranceway to our house. It requires painting, some new flooring cover and a general tidy up. I have been sanding old varnished doors of a big cupboard and I put some bigger brackets on a cupboard mounted on the wall. In the process I had to grin. The big cupboard was made out of old demolition timber. Many years ago a man had his kitchen redecorated and there was this big pile of unwanted doors and timber. He asked me if I wanted to take it away for firewood. So I did, and out of this rubbish I fashioned this big cupboard. As I pulled the doors off I giggled to myself. The screws holding the hinges on, and the hinges themselves do not match. We had a growing family back then so our budget did not extend to new screws and hinges. We reused things. When I put the bigger brackets under the wall cupboard on Friday, I remembered that we had got that from somebody discarding it and the brackets, which were really too small, were the only ones I had. They were somebody's rubbish, and back then I could not afford to buy new ones. I must admit the ones I put on yesterday were also somebody's discards. I love my weird lifestyle, but as you have more free cash on hand, you do get lazy and buy new rather than recycle and reuse. 

My faithful camera has died. I think there is something wrong with the mechanism that drives the lens out and in. I have to buy a new one. My old one has a view finder, you squint through an eye piece like cameras of old. New cameras have a screen you look at. In sun I can't see the picture I am wanting to take using my wife's one! I have been browsing in shops for options to buy, but none have the old view finder option? I might have to get used to the digital age. I am sad about my old little camera. It was so compact, handy and a bit like an old friend. I always took it on walks with me.

I sat in a cafe yesterday morning and on the serviette I drew up a list of all the things we could do in the remaining holiday time we have. I suspect we will not get them all done, but we will try. Wish me luck, it will be good to have the time to choose what I do.