beautiful bronze blocks

a lovely lazy day. went for a swim and sauna this morning, then John decided he was neglecting me so we went out for a traditional pub sunday lunch, which means no dinner to cook!

he has been hard at work since before I came back from London, after a visit to the foundry to collect twelve bronze blocks and twelve wheels that he had made wooden patterns for and sent for casting. these are for our old wooden yacht, Isonda. John sees the finished beauty in his mind's eye and has been making new parts for the past year, even though work at the boatyard has been minimal because, after all, this is Scotland, and the weather is rubbish.

He wants the boat to be as traditional as possible, and all the working ropes will use these bronze blocks. The hard work is taking the block as it came from the foundry - like the one at the front - and putting it through various stages of polishing till it shines like the two in the photo. the wheels will have to be polished and also have a groove put in for the ropes to run along, then they will have to be joined together with bronze pins. Restoring an old yacht is expensive enough, even when you make most of the parts yourself. John told me he could buy these blocks in the US - for $280 each!!!

So I thought all this effort was worth a blip, and in fact it was harder than I thought to take pictures - lots of reflections and - in this case - unwanted bokeh. you can just see a glimpse of blue from a chink in the curtains, which I had drawn - not well enough.

soon be time for Dancing on Ice folks!