Digitalquill

In the continued trend of catching up with the period of no blogging, many of you will already know that on August Bank Holiday Cheryl and Myself were married. It was the perfect day, and all the planning (one of the reasons why I stopped blogging) all paid dividends in the end.

We were got married in a wonderful place called Simonstone Hall in Hawes in North Yorkshire. It was the Hotel I took Cheryl to after proposing to her at Aysgarth falls. We could only have dreamt at that time that two short years later we would be getting married there.

The weekend did not get off to the best start as on the Friday morning James and Lynne (Best man and Bridesmaid) had a burglary, and then on the way up to North Yorkshire the top box on my car opened and scattered clothes over the A1, in the rush to get packed I had forgotten to lock it, however, it was good to get rid of anything that was going to go wrong before the wedding rather than on the day!

We had found two very special cottages for the evening before, one for the Girls and one for the Boys. I am sure the Cheryl will agree that we were both given a special evening, bottles of Champagne and some great food, followed by games and an early night (no really, an early night).

The day its self went perfectly, Cheryl’s drive over buttertubs pass in a vintage Rover went without a hitch, and everyone got there safely, the ceremony was all we wished for and the wedding breakfast food was a delight. A great day was had by all.

Eva was of course the star of the show in her little party dress, she was as good as gold and stole everyone’s hearts. 

Here are a few photographs selected from the many that we had taken.

We have sent out individual thank yous to everyone who was there and made our day so fabulous, but I would like to thank and recommend some of our suppliers who did such a great job for us.

Simonstone Hall - If you ever get a chance to visit do so you will not be disappointed

Weddings Alive Wedding Photographs – Ruth Mitchell - See above, just fantastic memories of the day

Periwinkle florist – Fantastic flowers (Tel: 01969 606005,  Market Place, Askrigg, Leyburn, North Yorkshire DL8 3HL)

A Touch of Class Balloons – Hawes - Great addition and complement to the flowers and decorations we made

Ivory Bridal Collection  - stunning dress and a dedicated personal service

Thank you to all for making our special day perfect

Eva loves cooking, we made some chocolate rice crispy cakes with her yesterday, she loved it, we made way too many so we will have to give some away. All Eva could say was exciting! She had one for her tea and loved it!

We put Eva to bed at 1:30 as normal today, and after a little protesting she went off to sleep. at 3:00 I went to get her up and found the following scene! She had pulled off the boarder. She always does love looking at it and picking at it, but she had pulled the while lot off the wall.

Daddy has another job to add to his list!

Eva Pulls Off the Wall Paper - Another Job For Daddy!

Having been on the council allotment waiting list for 8 months now (I know exactly when it was because we decided to go for one when Eva was born) I have acquired a plot of land that has been gardened as an allotment for many, many years.

The Owner of this land is now poorly and can not attend to the allotment and knowing that we are looking for one has offered it to us for the same price as the council allotment rent.

This is ideal for me, the land is tucked away and is therefore very private. I have lived in this area for 20 years, passing the location of the land almost every day and I did not know it was there! This is great as it will mean that as Eva grows up, she can join us on the allotment and even have a plot of her own.

We want to make sure that Eva know what vegetables are and where they come from and not just those orange things you get from Sainsburys. Also we want to be able to provide good veg that we know the origins of, not that we are paranoid about pesticides, but if we are in control of what we grow then we know what we are eating.

I would not say that I was an expert gardener, in my previous property I had a veg garden and I used to get some good results from what I planted, however I was always hampered by the size of that plot.

This new allotment will certainty be a learning curve, the soil is perfect and allot of the hard work of preparing the ground has already been done as it has been in use for many years.

I have bought yet another domain name to add to my collection, OnTheAllotment.co.uk. I will be setting up a blog on the domain and I will blog about my progress on the allotment with the hope that I can post as I learn, what worked what did not, and perhaps even keep a record of produce year on year.

It is the perfect timeof year to get hold of the land as int he next couple of weeks is when the season starts to kick off.

This year Christmas is going to be very different for us. Regular readers of my blogs will know that 7 months ago saw the arrival of our first child. Eva is now doing very well, crawling around and almost standing up. She is into everything, if she sees something that she is interested in she has go grab for it.

We would normally have the Christmas tree on the floor in the bay window, however, Eva would easily be able to grab at it. It is not that stable and could easily be pulled down, so, for that reason one of the baby proofing projects that I thought I would blog about was making a stand for the Christmas tree, moving out of the reach of little hands.

I am lucky in that I have a load of 18mm MDF left over from shelving out the garage, this would make the ideal material for the box I was making. It needed to be 600×600 mm in order to be big enough for the base of the Christmas tree and 500mm high, which would hopefully be just high enough to keep out of Eva’s reach while being low enough for her to be able to see the tree.

So here is my quick step by step guide on creating a Christmas tree stand

1. Cut the top piece at 600×600mm, a front piece at 600×500mm and two sides at 582×500mm. I am leaving the back open but you could easily add a back if required, as this backs up against the wall, we will be able to use the box to store things that we do not need over Christmas.Although the Dewalt Saw bench makes life allot easier, you can do this project using hand tools only.
   

   Dewalt Saw Bench with Side extension

   

   MDF Cut to Size

2. Take the top and measure in 18mm (or what ever thickness paneling you are using) in from the front, left and right edges and draw a line as shown in the picture below. Make sure you mark the underside of the top as we will be fixing our joining bars to this line later.
   

   Mark 18mm round the edge of the top

3. Cut yourself three jointing bars, I used some off cuts of 25×30mm pine I had lying around, these do not have to look great as they will be hidden. These need to span between the marks you have just made on the top of your stand.
4. Put the bars in place with one edge on the 18mm line you have just drawn and draw down the other edge. This will then provide you with a guide where to drill your pilot holes.
5. Drill through between these lines. I put 4 screws in each bar.
6. Flip the top over and countersink the screw holes to make a nice finish on the top.
7. Flip the top back over and put the front bar in place, making sure it is lined up with your original lines, especially the 18mm line, then clamp it in place. I used a quick grip clamp but a G-Clamp of any sort would do. If you wanted you could put some wood glue in between the bar and the MDF but I did not bother.
   

   Clamp the bar to the underneath of the Top

8. You can now torn the top back over, taking care not to move the bar, and screw through.
9. Repeat this process with the two sides until you have them all secured.
   

   All the bars secured on the top

10. Put the front panel into place and draw a line onto it at the top of the wood bar. This gives you where you can drill along the top of the front.
11. Measure and mark and line 18mm in from the edges of the front panel
12. Cut two jointing bars that will be secured to the front panel, these will be used to secure the front and the sides together.
13. Place them onto the front along the 18mm line, being sure to leave enough room at the top for the existing bars on the top of the box and draw a line down the outer edge.
14. Drill your pilot holes through on the front panel for the top and the sides and countersink them all
15. Secure the side bars as we did with those on the top
    

    Secure side bars to the front and drill pilot holes to secure it to the top.

16. Take the two sides and mark lines on them where they meet the top and the front, again drill and countersink your screw holes
17. It is now time to screw it all together, first secure the front to the top, making sure everything is in alignment, then secure the sites to the top and finally the sides to the front.
18. Your box is now made and should be strong enough to hold the biggest of trees especially if you have used 18mm MDF like I have!
19. As I was doing this as a project for Baby Eva, I wanted to round off the corners, so I used the router with a rounding bit along the edges of the top and the front.
    

    Round the edges with a router

20. Finally I used Christmas paper to decorate it, sticking it to the box with PVA glue and here is the finished article.

I will publish a follow-up article when we have the tree up so I can get a pic to show the finished article