
Full Metal Shed
Three weeks into NaNoWriMo 2015, and clearly it is time to interact with the real world again, just for a bit. Actually, I had known for sometime that I would be doing this in November so tried to be ahead of the daily word count before setting off.
The task in question was to re-purpose Sister-of-Snail’s metal shed thing at the end of her garden. SOS has done absolutely incredible things with this garden, putting the edible in incredible in fact. The metal shed was to be transformed into a fruit cage, because the fruit in Shropshire is vicious and needs to be contained (I am guessing that’s the reason and I was once savaged by a damson so know about such things).

One Bare Side

An annoyed Inhabitant – grrr

I can see a Giant Connect 4 Set from here!*

Almost Topless
In fact, when it came to it, the removal of the metal panels was not difficult at all – just two bolts gave us grief, but we didn’t have to resort to too much brute force and ignorance (which is a shame because I have the latter in spades). The local inhabitants were unhappy at the whole affair, but ran off (so I’m told, I was too busy running in the other direction to notice).

Fully Naked Metal Shed
After a day of toil (OK, leisurely DIY), we were joined by the rest of family highbankcottage and topped off the day with a wonderful community meal around SOS’s kitchen table. Lots of pizza and wine (not for tiddly highbankcottage though, she hates pizza, er, I mean, she wasn’t allowed wine) were consumed, and it was so nice to sit down with your fellow toilers and shoot the breeze for a few hours. I guess it’s what community is all about.

Paint Your Wagon non-Metal Shed

The Colour Purple (Sweet Damson actually)

Paint (Mis)behavin’
Next morning, I woke to the sound of Niece-of-Snail painting the framework (OK, I didn’t, she doesn’t paint that noisily). I wrote a few hundred words for NaNoWriMo, but actually wanted to continue with the re-purposing activities. There were two – remove the section of frame inside the soon-to-be fruit cage and see if the recycled mesh (from highbankcottage) could be persuaded to stay on the walls.

Shed in See-through Clothing
I returned to Chez Snail on the Monday, feeling quite satisfied at the weekend’s results. On the Tuesday, I started on NaNoWriMo and found that I had renewed energy to direct towards the story. Clearly having a break and doing something completely different with my brain did it, and the writing, some good. Five days later, the 50,000 words were written and the fruit cage was still upright. No doubt I will help to put the rest of the mesh up over the next couple of months – there’s no rush for that yet.
A Happy Gang at the end of the day
oOo
*Next door is a primary school with a giant Connect 4 set that Mr HighBankCottage was coveting. The Connect 4, not the school. It was a struggle to stop him climbing over for a game, as if taking a shed apart wasn’t entertainment enough.
It’s almost ‘pelt’ but not quite!
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It’s the skin of a sweet damson…
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Is that the same kind of damson that savaged you that time? Should we perhaps rename them damnsons? And by the way, that’s not a proper spider. I’m Australian, and I can tell. That’s a cute fluffy eensy weensy spider. Proper spiders are huge and hairy and when (not if) they bit you it hurts. A lot.
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Damnsons, yes, that is them to a tee! As for spiders, well it was huge, I was a really long way away from it, that picture was taken with a telephoto lens etc etc. No, I’m just a wuss. Wouldn’t last a minute in Australia, I’d be running for the departure gate before I had cleared customs. 🙂
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I see the colour purple is high on the Richter scale of colour choices and runs through all facets of Snail family life. Great job, excellent repurpose and 50 000 words? Kudos!
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Looking back, I think I need a lie down in December! 🙂
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Agreed. I think people expect too much of we Morlocks in December. We have just finished a hard year. Let us have a bit of a rest and a lie down NOT a ramp up to the silly season. Luckily we both have respective partners who are Morlocks like us and we are able to bypass the silly season on the whole 😉
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I’ll awake for a quick Solstice drinky then back to the land of nod until April. 🙂
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Wish I could do the same. One pod of my kids have bypassed Christmas nicely and we aren’t even doing gifts etc. this year (SCORE) but the other pod has an American partner who loves all of the shiny and spangly things (especially the expensive gifts) and so we can’t opt out of it entirely but we are working on it! 😉
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Good work with the one pod. The other, well, make them expensive gifts of prune crumble or something, that might put them off.
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Bypassed them entirely on their suggestion. No gifting either way this year so I guess that is a score. Just sad that they don’t appreciate something made for them with love BUT thems the breaks eh? 😉
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Had I been there and the angry resident shown up, I’d have just about made it back home by now. What an ugly son of a gun he was. Looks like you all did a great job.
Hugs
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The proof will hopefully be in the summer fruits pudding next year!
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I love the thought of being caught and tangled by the plum tree! 😉 Also the thought of wanting to sneak in to play the Giant Connect game (ha ha ha).
For several years we’d travel up towards your ‘Sister-of-Snail’s’ county to go and stay on my sisters Godfathers farm. We’d help with the lambing and loved staying in what seemed an enormous farm house! Even though we had our farm down here on a minuscule scale it was sill the highlight of the Easter holidays.
The fruit cage looks as though it’s going to be great in it’s new position. Just need Spring to arrive now 😉
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The Connect 4 could have been the downfall of the whole fruit cage project – we wouldn’t have been able to finish it from jail cells having been done for ‘breaking, entering and missing an obvious row of 4 after 2 moves’.
It is a lovely bit of England, that’s for sure!
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Too true, not worth the risk really. After all you’d miss the progress of the fruit growing. 😉
Yes I forget the name of the steep hill we’d have to climb near Wem but unforgettable memories.
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Nice work! That cage looks solid enough to keep even the most unruly damsons contained 😀
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Believe me, those damsons can be really unruly!
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