Calm before the storm

I am often told that I need to take time off from building the boat. I do. But I also need to boat. As the saying goes, 'London's first carbon neutral floating gallery isn't going to build itself, you know!'. I sort of had a couple of days off, which is to say, I still thought about the boat non-stop but managed to get in a handful of naps, didn't touch the bottle and enjoyed a couple of hot baths. Other than that, I did end up tinkering around in the background. Feels unavoidable.

One particular moment which felt very much indicative to the boat-making experience happened when I was settling down for a nap...

Earlier in the day I dragged Rosie to the boat after a Wetherspoon breakfast. We put the tarps on the box.

It had already started to rain just as we got there around 11:30hr. Scott popped his head out of his boat and said 'It's time to build that roof!'. We both got wet and did a decent job on the tarps.

That afternoon, as I was just drifting off, I bolted upright when I remembered I hadn't put the padlock on the cubicle! All my power tools were just sitting there waiting to be nicked. I got out of bed, half asleep and headed down there. As with everything with the boat, in order to do objective 1., you must first complete objective 0.5, 0.25, 0.1 and THEN you can attack task 1. So I had to walk to the studio first, pick up my bike, then go to the boat.

When I got there, I was glad to find that I was right (would've been a bummer if I'd actually locked it and just made a pointless trip). Nothing had been nicked neither. Woo!

That was on Tuesday 26th August.

On Wednesday 27th I had had another half-rest half-work day. I designed the roof. There are so many design questions which balanced between:

1) the material I have at hand (all reclaimed)

2) the purpose of the boat

3) the ease of construction (time is a factor).

...I finally decided to make a gable roof.

In the morning, I drove to High Wycombe to pick up two panes of glass

It's quite a technical feat to transport two enormous bits of glass without them smashing.

That afternoon, I rip cut some more lengths of 2x3 and delivered them solo to the boat.

At 20:30hr, I drove to Victoria to pick up a distressed butcher's block which I think will be a welcome addition to the display when it's a gallery.

A passing gentleman helped me get it on the car. It was mighty heavy, so thank God he did.

This painting sold online FYI

It's meant to be raining non-stop for a week starting Thursday so it is time to build that roof! If anyone fancies lending a hand, please get in touch - it would be massively appreciated!