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Over the last day or three I found myself having to repair the door to one of our sheds. This door – a Freecycle freebie of many moons past – was old and knackered when we got it. And it’s subsequently fallen apart a couple of times.

About four or five days ago, whilst putting stuff in said shed, this same door totally fell apart on me… again! Wish I’d have gotten pics! It was really something.

So I removed it, with a view to repairing or replacing it. I prob’ oughta just replace it. But lack of funds means fixing is the more immediate viable option.

Last time I fixed it simply by gluing the old joints back together, using clamps and straps, in the hope it’d all bind up ok. And it did, for a year or more.

But lately it’s been falling apart for what is poss’ the third time. And this time the original joints are all snapped off. So when fixing it on this occasion, I’ve added wooden patches, glued ‘n’ screwed, for belt ‘n’ braces double-action protection!

Sadly the door has gone pretty severely askew, and sagged, such that even after re-assembly and patching up, it’s not the greatest fit for the doorway of this shed. I had to both raise the hinges a wee bit, and cut into the lower door frame.

And there are still ruddy great gaps, one (triangular!), at the top, and the other, running all the way down the right side on the door frame, fairly parallel. I’ll be adding timber to address both!

But yesterday I simply re-hung the door. Ha… simply!? I had to cut, chisel and saw away some of the basal frame, to allow the door to swing in and out! And I had to move it all up about 15mm as well, and re-drill and re-mount the hinges.

The door is so skewed it’s almost unreal! I had tried to address this when I first attempted to ‘fix’ this door, ages ago. But it seems that’s a losing battle, so I eventually just went with it as it ‘wanted’ to be.

Once re-hung, I moved the latch. I have plans to add wood to the top gap, and down the entire right side of the door frame, to finish this job. Oh, and prob a new cost of paint.

The job that occupied me most after the shed door was putting up four shelving brackets. I got these quite some time back, off the Amazon Vine program. They are black, metal, simple L-shapes, with pairs of small curled hooks at the base.

The biggest arse-ache when mounting brackets to walls is always drilling the holes and achieving decent fixtures. It seems the only really simple material would be wood. But 99% of the time one has to contend with either plasterboard (aka dry-wall) or plaster, bricks, etc.

On this occasion it was the latter. Plaster over bricks. Necessitating the use of my Hitachi hammer-drill with masonry drill bits. The biggest issue with this scenario is the drill bit wandering, and/or the holes winding up too large.

I’ve taken to remedying this by filling the drilled holes with Polyfilla, pushing wall-plugs in, and letting that go off for about 24 hours. I did the drilling and filling yesterday. So today I’ll be mounting the brackets and screwing them in. I do hope this works!?

The lower of the two shelves is cut, notched, and sanded down now. And already sat in its allotted position. I used an old shelf I got via Freecycle years ago. I wish I’d have kept more of these shelves. I chopped a couple up for kindling/firewood!

I was attempting to shape some boards for the second shelf, yesterday. But the timber is so warped, cupped, twisted, etc, I’m not sure if it’s too much to remedy? Still, the work gave me a chance to use my planes, esp’ my Paul Seller’s style scrub plane. And it was a bit of a work-out. Prob’ good exercise!?

Utterly sublime!

I discovered Theo via Vulfpeck, as I’m sure most folk do. His singing, drumming, guitar playing, and other sundry stuff, in that context, are all great. No, make that, superb.

But then I discovered his solo stuff. I’m trying to recall what it was I first heard in that line? Pop Song, perhaps? And from there I just kept digging. And, holy shit… it’s all solid gold!

I bought Modern Johnny Sings a few months ago, whilst riding a euphoric wave of Katzmania. And it’s stupidly good. But live? Theo and his seriously talented crew take it all to a whole other set of levels. It’s truly astonishing.

For an ageing somewhat jaded ornery duffer like me, having my faith in humanity restored by the righteous soul of these cats is a real tonic.

And to top it all off, the aesthetics are aligned perfectly to my, er… (adopts Alan Partridge voice) I want to say chakras!? … but I don’t go for that nonsense! What I mean to say is Theo is looking super-fly, and the whole package – from fonts to colour schemes (never mind the sounds!) – everything is just TOTALLY AWESOME!!!

Being heartily sick of feeling sick – bloated, lethargic, windy, etc. (and that’s in addition to other stuff!) – after about a week of hemming and hawing, I’ve decided to actually try the FODMAP diet.

I’ve done other exclusion diets in the past, to little or no noticeable effect. And that’s partly why I’ve so long resisted trying this one. Plus FODMAP looks harder than any of the others I’ve tried, and prohibits (at least initially*) lots of stuff I love!

But I need to do something! And FODMAP has been recommended to me before. Plus it’s alleged to be beneficial for people with my congregation of symptoms.

I had been tasked with cooking an old faithful favourite, spaghetti carbonara, tonight. But that’s full of prohibited stuff: pasta, onions, cream… (at least the way we make it!). Bummer!

So instead I’ve grilled some salmon, boiled some ‘taters, and steamed a bit of kale and spinach. No butter or mayo for me, sadly. Just salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Luckily this proves to be both healthy and tasty, albeit that the potatoes really could’ve done with butter or mayo! Mind, I could’ve ‘drizzled’ some olive oil over them? Next time!

* I believe you cut all the ‘bad stuff’ out, carry on for a bit to see if it’s working, and then selectively reintroduce stuff to see what causes adverse reactions. So potentially some of the verboten stuff will turn out to be ok.

I was saying on here, very recently, that in some fundamental way this blog is a kind of modern ‘cyber-journal’. A record of some of things I’ve done or am doing. And very much a way to remind myself that I exist at all!

One of the main ways of doing this we have in our contemporary society is ‘I spend, therefore I am.’ And now, with social media such a large and powerful force, I ‘tweet’ (or whatever), therefore I am. It’s a continual performance. Surely this is a form of unbridled narcissism?

Anyway, leaving such worrying thoughts aside momentarily… it’s Thursday. Thursday is a non-school/non-teaching day. Such days are usually spent on a variety of things: from pure rest (for reasons I go into elsewhere on this blog I’m often utterly exhausted), to working on home/DIY stuff, or my teaching prep and admin, etc.

Earlier today I revisited a drum score – Led Zep’s ‘Good Times Bad Times’ – because whilst teaching from it yesterday I was reminded that it has a number of errors of interpretation in it. I corrected as many of them as I felt able to without spending all day on it, and then emailed the revised score to the pupil who I’m working on it with.

That’s all to the good. And it enabled me to tick off two items on todays ‘to do list’. But that list is pretty massive. I feel little crushed by the oppressive weight of obligations. This feeling isn’t helped by physical issues: I have various headaches, my eyes are streaming, and I have post-nasal drip! Such stuff very rapidly begins to feel like it a form of chronic attritional torture!

It’s hard to be dynamic, energised, pro-active, and all that, when you feel crushed by mountains of stuff to do, and beset by physical issues that drain you of energy and vitality.

As many will know from bitter personal experience, years of anti-NHS Toryism (some of it implemented by the Labour govt’s of Blair/Brown, to their everlasting shame), are slowly but inexorably grinding the NHS to dust. Trying to see one’s GP, where I am, has become an Orwellian dystopian nightmare. And people are literally dying as a result.

I mention this because the anger that this generates is one source of harness-able energy that could motivate me to more action. But before I go down a ranting rabbit hole, back – in proper ‘age of me’ blogging style – to more personal matters!

Numerous visits to the local GP surgery – at 90% of which I see a nurse or ‘clinical practitioner’ (what is that?) – have failed to clearly unpick my numerous ongoing issues. One line of inquiry is to treat me for hay-fever. I’m taking the meds. No signs of improvement yet.

So, having got up pretty late, about 10am, after a very good nights sleep (first time in three or four nights), I did the work on the drum score in Sibelius. Then I took a break for lunch. Made myself a three egg omelette, with onion, mushrooms and cheese, with a weak coffee to wash it all down.

I’m still cogitating over whether I ought to try this FODMAP diet experiment. I think I ought to. But I’m not sure I have the discipline (or even the funds to buy the required alternative groceries!?). But my constant bloatedness and wind argues that I really really should make the effort. I’m 50, fer chrissakes, and still don’t know my body/health like I ought to!

Some other symptoms of less than ideal health are my profuse sweating, IBS style bowel movements, and – especially noticeable overnight – continually dry mouth. Reading about this stuff online, along with stuff I’ve gleaned from the treatment of my psoriasis and arthritis, suggests high blood pressure.

So once again improving diet and increasing exercise are indicated. The only real exercise I get at present is the home/DIY stuff I do. Such, for example, as the earth moving I’ve been doing recently in preparing a base for the shed Ken gave us.

I’ll take a break from this post now, to go back to some of that work!

In recent years I’ve started to experience what might be IBS: one moment constipated, the next suffering from diarrhoea. Not much fun!

I have a whole range of issues, health wise. The chief of which are psoriasis and psoriatic arthropophy. These are, thankfully, being dealt with by meds I currently take.

But a whole constellation of other issue also plague me, from bouts of depression to total and utter physical exhaustion one moment and insomnia the next. Again, not that much fun!

And in amongst all this, as well as being a bit overweight, I definitely suffer from bloating. A recent trip to the doc’s (re)confirmed this. The guy I saw – a clinical practitioner, not a fully-fledged GP – tapped on my torso: tapping on his cupped hand on my chest produced a dull thud. On my belly? A drum like ‘thock’. ‘You’re full of gas’, he told me. A if I didn’t know!

Over the years and for varying reasons I’ve tried numerous exclusion diets. I was a veggie for many years, on ethical grounds. Having ditched that, I tried other diets to try and address the psoriasis and arthritis. Such as no dairy, avoiding certain food groups, etc.

None of that latter stuff appeared to make any difference whatsoever! Certain regimes I’ve either never ties, or only in a half-arsed way. FODMAP looks scarily hardcore. Loads of our most common foodstuffs are in the avoid category!

But, encouragingly, or at least softening the possible blow, it’s a three step process. Cut all that lovely stuff out for say a month. See if things improve. And if they do, strategically reintroduce stuff, to see what causes a return of bloating.

According to info I found on a a nutritionist’s website, FODMAP is a three step process:

The three steps are:

1. Elimination – In this first step, you eliminate all FODMAP carbs for several weeks. Your symptoms may improve immediately or over several weeks.
2. Reintroduction – In this step, you’ll introduce FODMAPs one at a time to identify which foods you can tolerate and in what amount.
3. Personalization – Finally, you’ll modify your diet to increase variety while adjusting the type and amount of FODMAP carbs you eat, based on what you learned in step 2.

Many, many moons ago, our pal Patrick gave us an old pine chest o’drawers he wanted rid of. It was in a fairly poor state. But I thought I could salvage it.

I gave it a good clean, sanded it, and fixed one or two bits. But I left the bottom drawer as it was; it had a ruddy great ‘ole in it! Over three-quarters of the base of the drawer was missing.

And we’ve used the chest for years, the middle and top two drawers working fine, the bottom as a kind of semi-operative stash for random crap. Not any more though!

Today I watched a YouTube self-help video about clutter. And although, in all honesty, it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, it did serve as a tonic reminder of some home truths. And it galvanised me into action. So, although I normally avoid such content like the plague, I’d like to thank Nena Levone for her video. And I include the link to it (above).

My resolve to tackle our clutter (Teresa is bad that way as well!) began with simply trying to tidy our bedroom a bit.

The first thing I did was box up an old Tascam 244 Portastudio. I got this from my dad, Simon, and hope to restore it to full working order one day. But for years it’s just sat around gathering dust and getting in our way.

So it’s getting boxed up and stored in our attic. I had to slightly customise a cardboard box to make it fit. I’ve added bubble-wrap to protect it. And, naturally, only when I’d fully boxed it up, did I find the manual!

Next I started moving stuff around. I do absolutely loads of this. it should probably be top of my resumé! And really I’m wasting time. Anyway, today I’ve been trying to move stuff to more appropriate locations. And once that was done, the chest of drawers – now with no mounds of stuff all over it – kind of hove into view, as an obvious next job.

I took it – it in this instance being the bottom drawer, not the entire unit – out into the garden, and removed what was left of the former solid pine base. I’d have liked to have kept everything as solid pine, but that would be too labour intensive and expensive. So I got a piece of 9mm ply cut to exactly the size I needed, by Simon at West End DIY.

I needed to slightly bevel three of the surfaces, so they would slide into the friction fit grooves in the drawer. Only the rear face of the drawer is actually attached to the base. This allows the wood to breathe and move a bit.

I did this with one of my Stanley planes, plus a little additional sanding. With a bit of finessing it finally fitted in nicely. I then banged in some very small lost-head nails or tacks, and the drawer was looking great again.

Last but not least, I fitted the rather lovely old wooden handles. One still has an original screw. The other I had to bodge a bit, with some dowel filling the vacant ol’ hole, and a new screw. With that done, I could pop the drawer back in and load her up.

Before this repair these drawers were filled with a real mish mash of my clothing, bedding, and random rubbish. Now they’re chock-full o’ naught but my vestments. Very satisfying!

There are one or two other little jobs I’d love to get done today, one of which is to put up a mini shelf for our bedroom DVD player, either above or below our bedroomTV.

Not sure that I’ll get around to this today though? Very tired! Plus I might cook our dinner tonight as well. Saw an interesting cooked cabbage recipe on YouTube that I’d like to try!

* In it’s finished state.

I’m totally on Jack Stratton’s – or Vulfmon’s – wavelength when it comes to digging the guitar artistry of David T Walker. And what a beautifully minimal rendering of a classic song!

I’m joining the Vulfmon’s new religion!

Wahoo!!! Today one of my schools surprised me in the nicest way possible. Head of Music & Performing Arts, Jenny W, told me, on my arrival, ‘There are some boxes you might want to see’.

I knew what this meant. We had a Drumathon fundraiser event s while back. Actually it was what feels like ages ago now. So far back I can’t remember exactly when! A big thanks to all the staff, pupils and parents who helped us with that, as that’s what’s lead to this.

I’ve included pictures of both the former or ‘before’ kit, as well as the present or ‘after’ state of affairs. If I was a savvy YouTuber I might’ve made an ‘unboxing’ video. I suppose this a ‘slow’ version of that?

The old school drum kit – actually there are several; but this is the one I teach on – has more than done it’s duty. The current incarnation, which was preceded by a slightly better mostly Pearl Export kit, is mainly not so great CB drums, with the old Export snare, a Leedy floor tom, plus an assortment of cymbals and hardware.

The schools’ several drum kits, all partial and all none too hot, share one thing in common; they sport plain monochrome wraps. The new Tama Imperialstar , by contrast, has a gorgeous and rich Coffee Teak veneer, in a lovely high gloss finish.

The school’s tired old kits all have ancient and very weathered drum heads. Whilst the new Tama kit has shiny new heads, it has to be admitted they aren’t the best feature of the kit. Hopefully we’ll re-skin this kit with coated ambassadors, and maybe get a CS-dot on the snare? (The kick is fine as is.)

The ancient Frankenstein kits that the school’s soldiered on with have certainly served the school well. But now they’re all way too tired, and long past the point of simply being sad and decrepit, belonging, frankly, to ‘useless scrap’ territory! This shiny new Imperialstar should add a bit of bling and zing to proceedings.

So anyway, I moved the boxes from the office to the current ‘drum room’ (also the school’s music tech suite), and started the unboxing and assembly process. Some of the kids, who were off on a school music trip today, helped me un-box everything before the left. Shame I didn’t get any pics of that. But schools are funny about teachers photographing students nowadays.

Opening boxes of new stuff is always fun! I can totally see why unboxing videos have become a thing.

The drum sizes are as follows: 22” x 16” kick; 14” x 5” snare; 10” x 7” and 12” x 8” rack toms, and a 16” x 15” floor tom. The cymbals are HCS Bronze: 14” hi-hats, 16” crash and 20” ride. They’re not top end cymbals. But they both look and sound better than anything we had previously.

Although the music trip kids left after the unboxing, I still managed to get a decent chunk assembled before my first pupil, Dan, showed up for his lesson. Fortunately he was happy to spend that lesson helping me finish putting the kit together.

The snare and rack toms arrived assembled. The kick and floor tom needed putting together. Once everything was assembled – with a pillow in the bass drum giving instant satisfaction – it was time to start tweaking the tuning.

I’m really chuffed the school went with the brand/line and finish I suggested. I’m wondering did I also suggest these specific sizes? The kit consists of rather fusion-esque smaller tom sizes, which, with the supplied heads, give a pretty high pitched sound.

Whenever one has a new kit, it takes a while to tweak it, and get it bedded in. Today that took the form of some tom tuning, tightening up the snare, and getting the toms properly aligned relative to each other.

I think the aesthetics of this kit, it’s physical allure, are actually very important. A sexy kit makes friends easily. People want to play it, and that makes teaching a little more fun, and quite a bit easier.

So, all in all, how totally terrific! Aren’t we lucky to have such a lovely new kit?

Having fixed my motor, and cleaned the engine bay, I checked all my levels, coolant (still good; so glad I fixed that!) oil, etc, checked tyre pressures, and belt tensions.

With everything ship shape, I moved in to cleaning and sprucing up the interior. After a serious vacuuming, it was out with the cleaning stuff. Once again ChrisFix (and others) was invaluable. I used his list of products and steps for cleaning.

Once you start down this road, however, I can see the danger of obsession lurking. The nicer any one part looks, the more you notice the other less spruce aspects.

A few more jobs are definitely looming: replacing the worn out ‘shift boot’, aka gear stick shroud (?). My knob (chortle) is pristine! And ditto all the engine bay hoses and tubing, along with all their clips.

I’m also going to clean all the wheels. Although I doubt I’ll be going as far as ChrisFix and others in trying to get them looking like new. That said… maybe!? But in truth I’d like some nicer wheels anyway. Wire wheels are the dream!

Another little mini project, for as and when I get a new set of tyres, could be to ‘whitewall’ them. I reckon that’d look super-fonky!

Having replaced the cambelt, etc, and got Maisie back on the road, I’ve felt a sudden urge to look after her generally.

The first manifestation of this bizarre compulsion has been to clean the engine bay. I watched a video by the very popular American YouTuber ChrisFix, to glean how to clean, so to speak.

I wasn’t quite as patient or methodical as he evidently is. And although I was recently given a jet-washer, I was unable to use it, as I couldn’t find a tap close enough to reach the front of house/car.

But I did spend the required time, knuckling down to a good few hours of fairly fastidious cleaning. I cleaned the inner ‘hood’ as our former colonials have it. And the whole engine bay got a once (twice, or thrice?) over.

My before and after shots aren’t quite as drastic and compelling as ChrisFix’s. But they do show a marked improvement. One notable lacuna being that I didn’t do the cam cover as well as I might.

But in order to do that properly, I need to remove the VVT and spark-plugs. And I decided to leave it at a cursory clean for now, as I might be having it off again (snigger) for a really proper clean, and poss’ even a spray paint.

Looking at the pic above, I can see a few things I might want to re-visit. The above-mentioned cam-cover is the most obvious. But the two clamps that hold the radiator in place (and the radiator itself!) would make a notable difference.

Another ‘when funds allow’ job for the engine bay is a complete new set of hoses, pipes and clips. Some of the hoses definitely need replacing. And not only should everything look better, it ought to function better, and add longevity.