No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die…

People have asked me if I had fun the other weekend, going to visit the Crazy Canalman. The short answer is “Yes, I had fun”.

Now for the long answer…

We’ve always done DIY in my family – you only call in the professionals as a last resort. Like the time Granddad put a drill through the cold water pipes one May Bank Holiday, and Farv had to frantically bribe the plumber to visit whilst Mum (pregnant with me) dealt with a screaming infant (my brother, a horrible child by all accounts), the cat having a heart attack downstairs, and my step-Gran being… my step-Gran. Granddad, so family legend goes, just sat there till the plumber came, with his finger in the hole like the little Dutch boy.

This love of DIY has stood the Crazy Canalman in good stead on the boat. As soon as one thing is mended, another three seem to break, but we’ve only had to call in the professionals for fitting of the boiler and actually installing the cooker, though admittedly my uncle (engineer-turned-brain surgeon/army medic. Truly.) has helped a fair bit.

One of the reasons I went up to the boat last weekend was to give a hand with some of the ongoing works – somewhere along the line tiling the bathroom morphed into putting up shelves, but hey, it’s all fun!

I would like you to ponder something for a moment: how do you put up shelves when there isn’t a straight line on the boat, and when the entire centre of gravity is constantly shifting due to movement on the water?

The answer is not easily. It can be done. We proved it, as evidenced by this picture, but the entire thing was judged by eye and bodged together out of some Ikea units that weren’t really designed to work together. I think it turned out pretty damn good.

Anyway, to make more room, Farv had to say goodbye to his “captain’s chair”, a wonderfully comfortable black leather swivel arm chair I’ve coveted since the moment he bought it four/five years ago. The first time I sat in the thing I had this mental image of the Bond villain, swivelling round, stroking that fluffy cat, and we needed another chair in the living room at Meadow Towers, so…

bondchair

(And please note my shiny boots – the bargain boots).

10 thoughts on “No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die…

  1. Curses… I was going to say that you looked like Ernst Straro Blofeld (I do my research before posting), but you beat me too it Josh!
    P.S very good job on the shelves.
    I am a bit dope when it comes to home improvements. I do my own plumbing and wiring and electrical work. Anyway, When I was installing a PIR for my new swish alarm system… I had taken off a light switch to get to the wiring I had installed previously for the alarm system. Got in installed, was testing it so I turned on the power and forgot to put light switch on again, it was dark… come to turn lights on and electrocuted myself 🙁 Still alive tho.

  2. Well I should hope that I don’t look like a middle aged bald Bond villain, if that’s all right with you Crazy! Evil, yes. Bald, middle aged, fat (and male), no.

    And, um, wouldn’t it be an idea to get a professional in if you have a penchant for zapping yourself with the mains? Just, you know, an idea! 😀

    (Glad to hear you are not blogging from beyond the grave. Though that would be something worth seeing, if only once!)

  3. lmao… I was just implying that was the look you were going for, with the cat and the chair. Anyway, I wouldn’t say you are evil… I don’t think you could really pull that look of, more of a happy person I think.

    Any are you mad.. hiring someone in costs a bomb, and why let them have all the fun 😛

  4. I can do scary when I have to. When I decide to let go, for example to get something done properly, I’m assured that I can be very, very scary. Especially on the phone when you can’t see that I’m a short plump brunette with a grin a mile wide.

    But yes, on the whole, I am a happy person. Some people just are I guess. Could be worse.

  5. Um, thank you?
    Translation please? I got the rofl part, but the rest escapes me. Clearly I’ve been away from the Boards and MSN too long…

    Hello, btw
    😀

  6. pwned – Dominated an opponent, to own the opponent.
    lmao (altho it is typied wrong above) – laugh my ass off
    lol (altho i think you probably know this one ) – lots of laughs/laugh out loud

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