On my way, to The Age

Sitting on the train on my way into Melbourne central to drop off my dozer project for them to photograph for an article in the Melbourne Magazine (one of those ones that comes out, inside the newspaper each week).

It’s quite a mission to get this in there- 2 hours of travel to drop it off, and I still have to repeat the trip to pick it up again! Hope it is worth it. It is rare I’m even awake this early 😦

The project they wanted is one I made years ago – 2002? 2003? so when I took it off the shelf last night, it was looking rather tired, and dare I say, I can actually see how much my woodworking has matured since then, which was quite a surprise. I’ve looked at it numerous times before, but it has been an “age” since I looked at it though another person’s eyes- thinking how it might be judged by them.

The dozer also has had some wear and tear since then too, some breakages and component replacements. So as it sat there on my workbench, I got out some 400 grit (35 micron) sandpaper for a quick once over, then a generous amount of wood oil. Amazing how the beauty of wood absolutely pops with a little oil.

The dozer is 100% jarrah (not counting the glue)- there are no metal components anywhere in the project, so it really responded to the wood oil with a beautiful, dark, rich colour. Probably a good thing I didn’t get much warning- I could have seen myself deconstructing the project to really finish it properly.

It did have one other benefit- a reinspiration to make another, and hopefully my maturing woodworking skills would result in something even better. Imagine what my woodworking might look like in 40 years time!

…….time progresses………

Now on my way out again- the city is just weird. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked in the centre of the concrete jungle (central London in my case, 21 years ago).

Felt like I shouldn’t be there- all these ‘important’ people streaming past. Guess I’ll never realise my potential of 6 figure salaries. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough. And I couldn’t- stupid train system couldn’t tell me which train to be on. After letting a half dozen trains pass, I got on one to get to the next station, got off it, then straight back on when it turned out the train was going where I needed it to. I pity strangers coming to Melbourne. Perhaps it will be different now Connex has lost the contract. Yeah right.

So I escaped. Thought I had been recruited by Men in Black- that’s the only colour everyone was wearing. Melbourne- a Gothic’s dream location.

So that’s 2 hours of my life I’ll not get back. Was it worth it? Only time will tell.

Think I’ll go hide in my shed the rest of the day.