Rest, Peace and Joy

Just a minute! This time last year I had just finished building the oak baby cot for a new series. My granddaughter was born by just a few days and an unbelievable gift she was to us all. Hard to believe in a year now passed that she's walking and saying things and making us happy with laughter because she's funny, cute and affectionate.

As it is with many things, making a cot by a grandad is amazingly pleasurable. Making two is all the better and the prototype in pine now resides at my house where on overnight sleepovers and daytime naps my granddaughter rests i the solidity of its frame. This is the way I enjoy the fruits of my labour all the more; the designing first, the making and fitting then, and then the comfort it gives my granddaughter as she calmly sleeps upstairs.

This year has been much work to pull everything together and keep the schedule running on time, but yet again it has been full of so many surprises. The house came together nicely in the end but not until we thought we had lost the purchase and even said goodbye to it.

It's a year since we first saw the house for sale and arranged to view it. As we followed up to buy it it all seemed destined to fall through. Two weeks passed and then suddenly everything came together for us to move ahead.

The builders moved in and started the remedial work - plumbers, electricians, carpenters and plasterers and tilers gutted two key areas and gave us two beautifully finished living sections for me to design for. A new canvass if you will. I snook in my new design in the wine rack to decorate for the Christmas gathering.

Personally I have been taking advantage a few days break. We all worked hard to be able to do this so that there were no glitches over the holidays. I am thankful for such a caring team that always take every issue and becomes the solution for anything outstanding. We celebrated together on the Friday night before Christmas by sharing a meal together at one big table for eleven people. The food was lovely but the company made everything exceptional. Needless to say I have missed them over the holidays.

Dwelling on all that we accomplished last year is humbling to say the least, it made me mindful of how much effort it takes to create the kind of content we do. The interfacing of two-world creativity can be more difficult than one might imagine. On my side of the camera I live in the making zones of wood, workbench and tools. Looking out I see the cameras and the people who man them as they too search to build their footage by capturing my moves and anticipating where I will go on the bench. Remember the plywood workbench? It was definitely the Marmite experience for everyone including me. Actually, I had planned this at the very least a decade or so ago -- making one, I mean. I had kept putting it off but the planning had all been going on in my head, on and off. It was a year ago when I made the prototype.

I added the finishing touches off camera including the under-shelf, the drawer and such. Having used it now for a year there is nothing I would change because all that I added was taken from my original wooden ones that have evolved over the past 40 or so years.

So it is with all that I do. I take a chance and then wonder at the outcome.