Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
Another spring, another DIY project. This year it's the back deck that needs a bit of tidy.
The
highlight for me, apart from a nicer looking deck, is the fun the kids
get out of it. They all get involved, trying their hand at drilling,
hammering and chiseling.
When they get bored with
that, they make huts with the left over timber and even this makeshift
seesaw from a plank placed over a saw horse. I'd go as far as to say
it's currently the favourite 'toy' in the house.
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