Tuesday

 Good morning, everyone.  It's another dull old start to the day today although yesterday, after some torrential rain, brightened up considerably and we had lovely sunshine for the rest of the day.  Maybe today will be similar.  Fingers crossed.

Yesterday pretty much all went according to plan.  Circuit training was, as suspected, a killer.  I never like the lying down sort of core exercises very much and end up feeling giddy and slightly nauseous, so I did modified versions instead.  Lindsey is good like that - always assumes one is trying ones hardest and is happy to adapt.  Still, I suppose it must be doing some good.

Tuition was fine.  The student is on a residential trip next week so I have a holiday!

Then Dave and Anna turned up with table and bowl after picking them up from Liverpool at the weekend.  Yes, they had a few fuel issues but nothing unsurmountable, thankfully, although Dave thought at one point he was going to have to phone his boss to say he might need a couple of days off, having not taken his work laptop with him.
All was well however.

Here's some photos.  The table is a slab of Canadian redwood that Dad had shipped over after a business trip there in, I think, the late 70s/early 80s and had made into a coffee table over here.  Some years ago, he and Mum had it re-varnished and whoever did it made a right dog's dinner of the job and it looked horrible.  What Anna's brother, Paul, has done is stripped everything back to the wood, filled in some cracks, etc and then re coated/waxed/stained/whatever-he-did the whole thing.  The base (which you can't really see as it's in shadow) is a different wood and he found a stain to get it to more or less the same colour which it hadn't been before.

To Paul's horror, the bowl had been used for fruit and as a plant or vase stand and was quite damaged with gone off fruit and water drips.  Again, he has restored it beautifully and, I gather, a visitor was prepared to pay rather a lot for it, had it been for sale.

I have to get used to the table being here.  It doesn't look 'right', it should be at Letchworth, but I will work on it < grin >.
Dave and Anna have laid claim to the table after my demise (!) and Beth the bowl so I know that their future is assured.

I thoroughly enjoyed our dinner together, Dave, Anna and me.  A shame about the wine induced headache this morning.  

Today, in contrast, is a nothing sort of day.  Nothing in the diary, nothing outstanding.    I'm going to do some tidying up and clearing out, especially my tuition shelves.  There's a whole load of stuff there that I no longer need but I DO need the space.
Today, I feel motivated - a nice feeling.
Have a good day, everyone.  xx