16 March 2008

16/03/2008
Well, Day Two has been quite successful. Not totally though; Justin’s ZZR battery isn’t taking a charge so I’ve had to put that in the garage on the Optimate in the hopes we’ll have a miracle between now and next weekend, else he won’t be riding at Easter. So I couldn’t sort out the toolboxes which are basically now totally obstructed by the Z.
Still, the bench end of the garage now looks marvellous. I’ve had a good old-fashioned shift around and organise of everything. So now all the oils are on one shelf together, all the cleaning stuff is in one place. You know the drill.
The guy who lived in this house before us was a painter-and-decorator type – and all the work he did on the house (and garage in particular) seems to have been done with stuff left over from various jobs. All the shelves in the garage are made of cheap bendy old chipboard held together with odd bits of wood. The workbench looks like it’s made of old pallets or something. Still, I am absolutely not complaining. At least the ARE shelves and a workbench. That kind of stuff would be expensive for me to put in because I’d buy metal stuff from whoever took over when Dexion folded… And I like the random rustic charm of it all.
So, while there hasn’t been any real progress bike-wise, at least I’ve now got an indoor area when I can work – with a little oil-filled radiator I’ve scrounged – that is quite comfortable and homely. The old stereo still works too, so there’s radio and cassette (remember them?) facilities. Hmmm, just thought, since the kitchen’s been redone in red, the old green kettle looks really out of place… I will have to persuade Justin that we really need a nice new one, in keeping with the new kitchen… Then a little fridge… No, that’s a step too far; I don’t need the power consumption. But if I had tea-making facilities out there, I could spend WHOLE DAYS in the garage, only making trips indoors for the loo and food… Must remember to take a CD out next time I go, to check if the CD player still works. It didn’t like the last one I fed it.
What else needs doing? Well, I could use a light above the workbench. There’s a fluorescent tube about a third of the way down the garage, but you end up working in your own shadow. A little strip light would be best, but there’s a random light fitting of the hanging-from-the-ceiling type that I’m sure I could adapt – as it’s already lying around. It’s not that I’m trying to do this project on the cheap, but I’m trying not to spend money unnecessarily, and anything I can re-use or scrounge or make do and mend, means there’s more money in the pot for things that NEED money spent on them.
It would be nice if I could get the existing fluorescent tube body at the door end of the garage working too, but I haven’t really investigated what that needs, apart from tubes and an electricity supply… Again, it’s there, which is half the battle.
Other stuff on the list is a lifetime supply of those little tags with string on them, for identifying parts (been there, done that!), lots of re-sealable plastic bags, for keeping related parts together, and I think a dodgy calendar would be in keeping. Firefighters maybe…So, a reasonably successful day all in all, considering the difficulties. There won’t be any progress next weekend as it’s Easter and Justin & I are going away with the gang to Gloucestershire for the weekend. I may do some pottering around and tidying up during the week (especially as I have to change the front wheel bearings on the Skorpion before I go away) but I’m making no promises.