Woodwork

When we moved in to Les Hallais, there was a rough fence facing onto the street, that was made of planks of oak nailed to vertical posts.  The oak planks looked like they were the result of passing a big tree trunk through a sawmill; completely unfinished and with edges that followed the old outline of the tree.

When we replaced the fence with a box hedge, we took the planks and put them in a corner of the garden where they have been rotting away quietly for the last ten years or so.   I have recently cut a few straight planks from them for use as walkways on the veg patch, and I noticed that the wood is in good condition, once you get past the surface rot.  Well, it is oak, after all.

I have a fine wooden music stand, a gift from my wife some years ago.  It is excellent for holding sheet music, but it's not the most stable of stands if it is holding something heavier.  I use a big android tablet for displaying sheet music in electronic (PDF) form, and I'm always concerned when I put it on the stand, that the whole affair will topple, and the tablet will break.

I have an old, heavy and very stable mic stand that I bought ages ago and have hardly used.  So, an afternoon with a selection of woodworking tools, and a section of rotting plank, and hey presto, a new, much more stable music stand capable of holding my tablet.  It's functional rather than elegant, but it works.  And besides, it grieves me to think of that fine oak going to waste.