Thanks to yesterday’s awesome run of cleaning today has been a very pleasant and unstressful meander through errands and things that are not-exactly-errands-but-nice-to-do. We’ve pottered out and done our shopping and it was one of those days where all the shopkeepers, most of whom know us, were chatty and in a good mood too…thus enabling an altogether enjoyable experience to be had by all. Although we’ve now got to take Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me along next time we go shopping because our cheesemonger wants to see it… largely because she’s been challenged by us every time we’ve asked for a cheese from it. Probably because they’re all local Irish cheeses that are impossible to get here.
We also stopped off at Hart’s Bakery where we not only had a delicious lunch but also managed to go from not knowing of a cook book’s existence to desiring it greatly. Our favourite restaurant in Bristol is the fantastic Flinty Red, and it turns out one of the chefs behind that has written a cookbook for busy families, which is us. Albeit a small family with just the two of us at the moment, but we lead a time-shifted shift-worker’s lifestyle which means that rapid, interesting meals are integral to our eating… Anyhow, it looks facinating, although I’m yet to discover what the connection is between Hart’s and Flinty Red. Other than that they produce insanely yummy food..
Anyhow, so having munched lunch we headed home and put the bookshelves back in the hall…
repopulated it with books and decided where the ‘tree slab’ is going to go (which will be for hanging coats and such). I’m really looking forward to that being done because it’s been waiting forever for us to do it. We’ve also got some forged iron hooks to go on it which are made into rather dinky little acorns.
We then set to and planted a billion seeds.
Given we’re intending* to move this year we have not ordered any more seeds, but that doesn’t exactly stop us from having about eleventy-billion varieties of seeds (I think we have about 5 varieties of tomato alone). Anyhow, this year, for once I’m moderately determined to get the damn things into pots at the right time and out into the garden at the right time. Which means building the raised beds and moving things and ooooh lots of gardeny stuff which I’m quite looking forward to.
The only problem with that is… I really want my circular saw working which means making a battery adaptor. And getting a battery. This is because it’s old enough that Makita no longer make the battery for it. So my thought process was that I’d pick up a cheap second hand charger and a knock-off LiIon battery for a Makita item and then learn all about 3D printing and make an adaptor that would allow me to mount the nice new LiIon battery on the ancient Makita saw. Clever, no?
Only it turns out that Makita kit still goes for ‘money’ even when it’s broken.
Then I thought well, I’ll get some other brand of battery, but I’d like it to be roughly the right shape and a decent brand, and that so far hasn’t helped.
The tricky thing is I’m generally fairly unwilling to buy stuff unless it’s fairly decent these days. I mean, I know I slip up and by shoddy stuff occasionally (for example I bought the craptastic drill from Agros** so I could get a battery for the marginally less craptastic self-feeding automatic screwdriver thingie who’s name escapes me – and then found the gits had changed the design of the battery, leaving me with a shonky drill that’s barely useful, and an auto-feeding screwdriver that’s also got a crappy battery (I really should get some new cells for that)).
Also, it seems that the various tool manufacturer’s 18v LiIon batteries take a bit of a beating and thus die. Not entirely surprising, to be honest, but it means a lot of the second hand tools come without chargers or batteries. So my cunning ‘buy a tool that I need anyway, that has a decent battery, second hand, that doesn’t help at all. Especially since a lot of people seem to just sell the drill or whatever bare, and the charger separately. So then I go looking at batteries and make a whimpering noise at spending £50 quid on a battery and charger combo…that won’t actually fit the damn thing I need a battery for anyway. Gah. I’m also loathe to spend £50 on a saw that I’ve no idea if it actually works. I mean, the person binning it thought it worked (apart from the duff battery)… But I don’t know.
Never mind, I’m sure some sort of solution will present itself.
* And I’ve started being quite a lot more ‘vicious’ in my book purge cycles, so we better damn well move. Oh yes.
** Yes, I’m well aware that’s not how it’s spelt.
ETA: It turns out I’m 57 varieties of moron. It’s a Ryobi circular saw, not a Makita. This may be why I’ve had such difficulty finding a battery.
ETA(A): No, that’ hasn’t helped at all.
