Hi,
Many thanks Sheal for your kind comments which are much appreciated. No I've never even considered trying to make money out of ideas I dream up; living here in the UK there is little or no encouragement and even less incentive to do anything these days; I already pay tax on my works pension and don't wish to be ripped off further should I do any work that I'm paid for; making a profit here is bad news after all it pays to be abysmal at your job to receive a pat on the back with a huge bonus for failure; I've had a lifetime of paying my dues and now the government regard me as a "Burden upon society" because I'm on state pension. I don't want to get into politics but as I say I'm encouraged to be bone idle.
Below I've added a few more images just for interest; I've said many times I'm a dinosaur taught in the old ways and I can make or do anything at all using my head and hands. When I bought the new cement mixer for the flood defences job the mixer arrived damaged only found after the delivery vehicle had gone; the motor mounting was broken it being plastic and the weight of the box meant it received rough handling. No way did I intend to try to rebox the mixer and go through the palaver of returning it after all I had bought this mixer to do a job. Such things are just another problem to sort out; I had a look around to see what I had in stock and pulled out a lump of "Whale Tufnol" I made a new heavy duty motor mount out of this; when I make something it's made to last. I kept this new mixer for six weeks looking after it and then sold it on for £30 less than I paid for it.
I've included a better picture of the pointing tray I made; as the joint is filled the tray is slid along leaving perfectly clean flags and the joint only needs running over with the trowel to complete it; this has proved very useful indeed over the years and it cost nothing other than a bit of effort although dreaming up the idea was the difficult part.
Rainwater runs towards the bungalow wall but I've laid the flags with a gradient towards the side garden so the patio never floods. Please notice the two white pipes and the gutter fall pipe how neatly they are attached to the new drains; I marked the plastic caps and cut out to give a perfect fit; much better than cleaning filthy material from open hoppers; I've possibly broken no end of laws and regulations doing this work but then I was following professional builders who hadn't a clue but had correct certification? Just because a person has a certificate doesn't guarantee competency? I'll stand by any job or project I carry out and I'm not scared to stand up saying yes I did that.
Thanks alp; there are also quite a few clever ladies here on the forum too.
So many people these days pray to the god of money and think of little else; Bron and I through living within our means and not having luxuries like holidays or flash cars whilst saving whatever we could are now comfortable on our pensions; we paid the mortgage off immediately I retired in 2000 and unlike many who dash out to buy a new car and caravan with their pension lump sum and redundancy pay out we invest ours so we can now afford to indulge ourselves in our various hobbies enjoying an enviable lifestyle whilst others worry about smoking plastic.
I have the benefit of Bron who is just brilliant and has stood by me for many years whilst we remained home working on our house during holidays whilst everyone around us went abroad then came back home bragging about where they had been to but then they were miserable the rest of the year; I'm certainly not smug or want to preach but Bron and I have worked hard for what we have and are still working hard in retirement; the quote above is as true today as the day it was first written. A lot of people are going to be in for a shock when they finally retire?
I've rambled on enough in fact apart from spending ages trying to buy bird peanuts this morning I've been idle but I won't be idle for long.
Kind regards, Colin.
