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I am still build guitars but only to order and only one or two a year, my speciality was (is) Tenor Guitars in both solid or acoustic. Recently finished this 21” scale electric….

G mac, I have made and sold around 40 guitars, I am not sure if I ever made more that a few quid out of any of them! It is certainly not an easy way to get rich!.

Was it good then, do you speak Chinese?

Yes I can imagine that would need re reading a few times!

Sorry Darrel but that sound more like study than pleasure!

It took me until today to install my Christmas present, solar green lights inside the dragon skull. Happy new year folks …..

Happy holidays…..

The latest version is ready and rocking for Christmas ……

I am an avid reader and more recently also a listener with audio books. I have found that finding really good books can be very frustrating as so many start off well and then fall to pieces after the first few chapters, or the ‘five star’ Amazon ratings are just false! Back in the day before...

You can find plenty of youtube videos featuring Brian Cox talking about his thoughts on alien life but, here is his very basic abbreviation!

12 years ago I was still learning to play but managed to make this video for Halloween….

There are dozens of Dolmens in Guernsey, lots were destroyed during the granite industry and quite likely ended under the tarmac of Londons thoroughfares. One of the best known is the Deheus Dolmen and that is only 150m from my front door. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-56663491

Looks like Armillaria Gallica, edible for some but dubious for others. like most Armillaria they need cooking and never eaten raw but from my perspective I would leave well alone.

Where I live on an island, there is presently testing going on with a large drone plane that can deliver pharmaceuticals across the 70 miles of sea from England. I think it has an 8’ wing span and travels at 100 mph.

We have just had a sweep of covid across our island, it seems quite a nasty virus as many people have been quite ill. However we had it in our house, with two people sick and two no catching it at all. I have had it once, my wife twice and we were all really ill, on all occasions, for over a...

The dragon is standing guard in my front garden ready to eat trick or treaters …..

I was commissioned to build it for her, Birdys record producer contacted me and then came to guernsey to see my work. So I never met her in person just via email.

Ok here she is 10 years ago, not long after writing the theme for the Hunger Games movie aged 15! However this is my real question … who built her guitar?

She is Welsh if that helps?

No but she is very famous, one of her youtube vids has over 200 million views!

Ok not actually a song but who can tell me who this is?

The Beatles played in Guernsey exactly 60 years ago today. So in honour of the fab four, there was an amazing tribute band playing the same set tonight and even at the same venue. Lots of interesting facts about the original gig were told to the large audience, originally they only played 9...

Spectating motor sport has been a life long interest, not sure I would say a hobby though. There is a lot of motor sport on our island including a round of the British hillclimb championship. Incredible machines.

That is awesome, I would like to have a go at that! Do you have any more to show us?

I have built another dragon skull.

Good to put name with a face :)

What an experience all that was Ah….. At the beginning it was pretty scary for us but, in other ways it was quite good! The whole affair may well of been easier for us on a small island compared to the mainland UK as we just closed the boarders and Covid stayed largely away! Personally we...

Quite popular where I live, there are free public areas and we have Guernsey Club de Pétanque. There are tournaments and leagues but I have never played myself:

Ok I will take the bait, what are they all?

The best fantasy books I have read for many a year, written by Brian Lee Durfee , grim and dark, fast paced and gruesome in places, great action story. Highly recommended if you like that sort of thing and right up there amongst the very best fantasy books available in my opinion. All three...

I think my first audio book experience would of been the cassette version of LOTR back in the mid 80s, it was a BBC production with a full cast and very good quality! Now that audio books are so common, there are several styles available, most are read by a single narrator, some have two...

Interesting video, jump to around 8 minutes thirty if you dont want to watch it all.

I am a massive fantasy fan, I read on average one book a week but, the problem when you have been doing that for 45 years, is finding new material ! just recently I have got into audio books

It could go either way but I am looking forward to it….. fingers crossed ah.

I would guess they need a lot of exercise!

Only a few days to go so I though I would start this years thread. I wish all my cyber friends a very merry Christmas and I hope you all have an algae free new year…. PS my tenor guitar wont play as low as my voice so you get a separate tune and song!

Thanks, some of my very earliest memories as a child are about making things, like shaping animals from playdoh or drawing stick men. It is just how my brain works…I just like making things! However, as much as I have tried, I have never been able to made any money from art, so I just make...

Better late than never …

Best puffball year for a long time, also huge amounts of deathcap this year! How is this for a Penny Bun….

I managed to do some sanding, very doubtful if he will be on display for Halloween, but he will make a nice Christmas Dragon if not!

I wish I had more pics to show you but we went to Oxford last week and came back with Covid and it is a bad dose that has floored us for the last three days. Hopefully be back sanding in a couple of days… Incidentally we went to see the TRex at the Oxford natural history museum and I found some...

Thanks, I have completely encased the top part in filler so I now have the very unpleasant job of sanding it all off!

Soon be here…. I have been making a large dragon skull but I am running out of time!

I think I need to restrict the air, it is a fine line of many factors but they do need to run hot to remain smokeless so maybe a thick metal top might work better.

I have got it humming now!

We went to Herm to watch out friends performing at a beer and cider week in Herm.

I have built a new stove with a hotplate to use on our patio instead of a smoky BBQ.

Here is one of my ‘long gone‘ pets, my crow called Edgar who I found on the ground when I was 14 years old, about 48 years ago now! My sister said that was going through my no hair washing phase…..

I kept a Guinea pig when I was young, she was called Jenny and later Jennapig. That was about 50 years ago but I can still remember her funny squeaks and darting movements but she was never a creature that enjoyed a cuddle. Do any Guinea pigs share affection with their human carers?

Ah I can see him now, I see a white and black one most days, he is of course called Bullseye!

He looks like a staffy + greyhound?

Nice one Dean, I have been a keen fisherman all my life. I was a very competitive match angler at one stage then a mad carp angler and always sea fishing. Unfortunately sea fishing has died a death in recent years and our local lakes are overcrowded and overfished but I have a lifetime of joyful...

Wow that looks fantastic!

I am not really a huge fan of bluegrass but even that genre has some great campfire songs like ‘Whiskey before Breakfast’ even the name is fun and the lyrics are really amusing. This is a great mandolin version and sung by an talented irishman …..

I love camp fire songs, easy listening fun songs that folk can join in with and have a laugh … basically the exact opposite of jazz. I like simple catchy tunes that are easy to play (very important in my case) Definition on a rock star = three chords and 50k audience. Definition of a Jazz...

My brain does not gel with Jazz, it has a dramatic effect on me that is so severe that I would rather stick red hot pins in my eyes than listen to big band jazz! I could maybe just about cope with 5 seconds of classical guitar jazz but I would probably suffer for a few days afterwards ……

Well spotted …. some of the M1 and M2 escorts are just the original body's on new chassis with big motors.

I am a petrol head so we were very excited to spectate this years rally after a two year break. This is from one of the night time stages last friday.

….Almost there, have a great Christmas to all my cyber friends and drink sensibly…..

Carol, get a didgeridoo for Christmas that will scare the dogs away….

Some folk have a natural ability to play a musical instrument and some dont but virtually anybody who starts young and has an interest can learn to play…. however starting at an older age, if you don't have natural ability and perfect timing, will undoubtably get you frustrated along the way...

I have been unwell this year and my mate was there for me so I felt he deserves something nice in return.

Just in time for Christmas, I have finished this Baritone ukulele for my best mate, I hope he likes it!

I agree, it is still common practice to encourage children to eat veg with promises or threats and will probably always be the same! When I grew up at home as a child, my mum kept a large vegetable patch and my dad was a fisherman so we ate a lot of fish and veg but little meat. When we did eat...

I think they steam inside the shell for the first part of the cooking and that keeps them moist but the burning shell adds flavour during the final part of cooking.

With chestnuts, you need to place one cut across the shell but not into the meat and then soak them in salted water for two hours prier to roasting them. I use a Stanley knife to cut the shell. I have a perferated pan that goes over a flame to roast and toss the soaked nuts for around 7-8...

Burnt brussel kebabs are a huge success around my way! Honesty, I cant cook enough of them most of the time but we do get the odd hater! Chestnuts too, they are popular but it has taken me years to find a reliable way to cook them.

Of course my friend, just an air flight and 5 days isolation away…..

@Geoffrey Rea, yes I have morphed from a young, fit, muscular adolescent into an old wisened, white wizard and I cant even remember it happening it was just so fast!

I love cooking for people, here I am searing steak at 550c on my rocket stove (tonight in fact)

Where are the pictures?

Much smaller scale this year but we still had a bit of fun last night…

Nice cross breed, clumbers are funny dogs.

It is getting close again! We went to buy our pumpkins today…..

Sealyham terries are unusual dogs, my friend has a lovely looking Sealyham with a black patch over its eye but he is a bit grumpy with other dogs!

This came up on my time line and in fact was a few years ago but the photos made me laugh. Lotty had found a bag of filter carbon and decided it would be a good place to sleep for a few hours ….

Beautiful little dog my friend, I feel and understand your loss. How is your other dog fairing?

Mort .. Ha ha I just watched your video link, that house was a bargain in 2017 it will be worth double now!

Hi Mort,I don’t know the house owners so no rear garden shots. The big concrete tower was built by the occupying German forces during the Second World War or perhaps more poignantly it was built by slave labour and supervised by the Germans forces. Guernsey was the most fortified place on earth...

@jamila169 that is Jersey! They are arch enemy number one to our much more beautiful island !:p

I think It might be a type of broom but it seems more fleshy and flexible , I have not seen the like before!

Well you are far to good at this game ! This is one I don’t know and it is not the easiest picture but …. .?

There are quite a few wood ant nest along the paths marked with red flags to make sure thier nest are not strimmed by the guys who keep the paths safe. I don’t think there are any of this particular species left in the mainland Britain.

Hears hoping Darrel or Mort can id some of the foliage ….

We went for a relatively short but quite strenuous 3 mile walk along our south coast cliffs, the paths are very up and down but full of interesting things to see. This beautiful red granite house has a lovely road side front garden with some interesting plants that seem to like the south facing...

The grass is always greener……

Tim, our little sister island Sark, that is part of the Guernsey bailiwick and surely one of the most beautiful places in the world, has gained 112 new residents in the last year. That might not sound like many but considering it only had 350 people there before, it is in fact a huge amount...

Tim, we have had a 10,000 people increase in the last year, there are english registered cars everywhere! House prices have jumped up to an all time high and there is now a huge housing shortage! We have many famous people and celebrities who have re located and bought up all the expensive multi...

My good friend Mike is right up there with his acoustic guitar style…. Sometimes he plays on stage with just one hand and it sounds miles better than anything I can play with two hands!

Where I live we have been very lucky to have had very few restrictions during most of the pandemic so I have still been able to get to many live gigs over the last year or so. Last Saturday we had a music festival with 4000 tickets sold and on Monday a free beach gig with 2000 people. Normally...

Here is a short medley of my five best friends playing at one of last summers ‘Castle Nights’ in Guernsey. We were lucky that the virus left us along for most of last summer! Castle Cornet offers a fantastic venue for weekly free music events throughout the summer (normally) as its elevated...

I love willow trees, they are just about the fastest growing trees you can get but quite short lived. Mine has already started to show fresh spring foliage and always the last to drop there leaves late aurtum .

As usual, when these things happen, we are surrounded by snow in France and England but not even a flutter for Us! They say it due to thermals swerving around our island and a warm land mass due to the 9c sea! Always very disappointing :(

Fantastic, never seen one use a hammock before!

Merry Christmas to all my cyber friends .....

Me in my bedroom....

Ha Ha that is madness! The guy should of grown a beard during the construction to give a time scale. I cant imagine the total cost including labour !

Hi Wookii, I used 3mm thick coat of epoxy. It is not that easy unless you take a lot of care in preparation ... the epoxy itself is a high viscosity (runny) product that needs to be mixed very thoroughly and accurately in a dust free environment (Outside in my case) and then warmed up to around...