I’ve been down at Fort Martin for the past few days, where we’ve had a bit of fun working with wood.

I’m hoping to create some new window sills for The Cottage from some tropical hardwoods that Dad had set aside for ‘something useful’ about 32 years ago! Mum and I set to work on the saw bench, creating great mounds of sawdust as we prepared the lengths. I seemed to have been positioned at the ‘wrong end’ and finished completely coated in dust!

Once we’d got the lengths we needed, we handed to wood over to Jeremy (the pro) at his workshop. He’s planed the planks down to beautiful finish with a strong grain showing.

We celebrated our achievements and kept the birthday week alive with tea and cake on the terrace (after a good shower and scrub up to remove the saw dust!).

Then later, at sunset, fired off a Prosecco cork as a toast!

We’ve also managed a bit of gardening, been out for coffee with Michelle and had plenty of time to enjoy a spell of warm weather wandering the grounds and having a good old natter.

Although we’ve been working hard, it’s been a refreshing and restorative change of scene. I’ll be traveling back to The Cottage over night and getting ready to assist a Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expedition. Looking forward to being out in the mountains again!