Whilst four back to back Kinks tracks play away I thought I'd just see if The Blog was still operational after all this time.... Seems to be! I really must knuckle down and get more regular with my inputting but hey, I just don't seem to get the time or rather, time just seems to go much faster the older I get???
Imagine this.... When you are young life and time is like a skipping rope which you can swing around your head. The longer the rope the slower it revolves, the shorter the rope the quicker it goes. That's time... It goes faster when its shorter!
Life as usual has been hectic and not without its ups and downs. The move to Romiley has proved to be brilliant but also stressful. We've had builders, kitchen fitters, roofers, joiner and electrician all in the house doing various necessary repairs/rebuilding/rewiring - sometimes all at the same time. One day I even went to the pub across the road for a pint, on my own, something I haven't done since I can't remember when! We took a holiday to get away from the strife first to The Azores (whilst the kitchen floor and all the internal doors in the house were changed) and then to Cornwall (where we had a week of solid sunshine and warm weather, unheard of in Britain for the last few years!). Trouble was that it still took time to cast off the stress and, if I'm truthful, I'm still stressed even though we had a break.... There's work still to be done, but I think we still need a rest.
Which brings me back to radio...Oh, remember that?? The business has suffered greatly from the move. Apart from having to get the workshop refitted and up to speed , most of the stock and customers commissions had to go into storage until I was ready, or so I though at the time, to start trading again. Sadly I still have many customers patiently waiting and for that I'm very grateful, but a time is coming when such support may well begin to wear thin so I really need to 'pull my finger out' as soon as possible. I've still a long way to go before I'll be back to full production and this week I've finally started putting the finishing touches to a Phillips that has been on the bench for at least three months... The income is lacking as a result so I must get down to work as quickly as I can or else the bank won't be happy!
Mainly though I just hate letting customers down and in fact I've even resorted to compensating some of the very long 'waiters' with a discount! It's mad business wise but only fair in terms of my reputation and honesty. I'm struggling on and let's hope my health too will improve as some of the delays have to be put down to my levels of energy which have been sorely lacking. I'm pretty much bushed by lunchtime these days and that's not good! My mojo has definitely left the building and I need to catch up with it soon!!
Gosh... Enough whining!! This week I hope to finish the Phillips (I'm about to change the final smoothing caps so keep me covered whilst I go in!) and the Murphy 146 case should be back from the polisher next week and I can finally get that out and on its way. That will be an all singing and dancing full internet streaming base station when complete so I'm already looking forward to building it.
As `far as reminiscing is concerned, thoughts over the last few days have taken me back to the TV shop in Birmingham where my dad was manager and where I spent many a Saturday afternoon out in the back workshop with Ray the engineer (later uncle Ray as he married my dad's sister!) and who allowed me to solder the 'simple' jobs and where I learnt a lot about radio repair and how to respect electricity. I think I had my first blast from a live chassis one afternoon so I've always been careful, having learnt the hard way like all of us I suppose! Radio repair and electric shocks can't be compared to say, bee keeping, where legend says that the bee keeper gets immune to the stings. The only way to get immune from electricity is to be, well, dead.....
Here's Huey and Duey, the Murphy 146 cabinets, playing football in the yard with Chloe the cat.
Huey, on the right, has been re-polished and Huey, on the left, sadly broke his leg diodes in the footie match and had to be put to sleep and went to the Great Dump in the Sky.
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