The Not So Great Sell Off.

One of my shorter lived grand ideas recently was to start work on building a John Welsford designed SCAMP cruising dinghy. I went as far as ordering a set of plans and was working on also obtaining a CNC cutting file and finding a company that would cut and supply the parts as a kit. The kit was going to be expensive because good plywood is now eye wateringly expensive so I thought to raise some boat building wonga (funds) first, by selling off anything that I wasn’t using and which could be sold. The things I had in mind included the Pathfinder’s outboard, my recumbent trike, our heavy canvas tent and the little CLC Skerry. Each one of those was the end product of a chain of over enthusiastic thinking, each one cost quite a lot and all of them are now sitting around in our yard not getting used.

By yesterday evening I was feeling flat to the point of being fractious and hangry after having spent hours doing the admin required to rescue and use again my Ebay account and my account with a boat sales site for which i’d forgotten my username and my password. Today has been a bad day finishing (I hope) a bad week : my usual calming strategy of walking around the lanes here failed hard this week as not only does either knee not like either uphill or down, and there are few flat sections, but it’s been a bad one for taxis taking over the place – a whole damn convoy of them at one point.

I should be celebrating this week because i’m 8% (8 Kg) down from my starting weight although the other side of me tells me to shut up and just carry on with the work as overall i’m not even halfway to an intermediate goal yet which is a total weight loss of 25 Kg. I have promised myself a minor celebration when my weight goes back into the top end of double figures ; (99 Kg) It’s funny this week that iv’e been watching quite a few Motorbike review videos – mainly of one of the newer classic Royal Enfield models (I really fancy a Bear) and in one video there were bikers saying that they were intending to treat themselves to one when their weight loss gets to a certain point – so i’m obviously not the only one.

I am slightly happy this week because I somehow managed to complete 30.000 steps over the week and that despite using a pair of crutches when I walk in the lanes. My orthopaedic review date came through as well so I should soon know whether i’m preparing for a revision of knee replacement – at least one one side. Every silver lining came with a cloud this week as I tried some body weight squats again and both knees said no and most days my knees ache intensely. This week we were looking at our calendar to work out which days we were both free to go and have coffee and a bacon bap before doing our weekly food shop but on most days one or other of us has either a doctors appointment, physio or phlebotomy appointment and of course none of them happen at the same time for both of us.

Going back to the great sell off for a moment : my last experience with Ebay was a bad one but mainly because I wasn’t managing communication and information well enough. After a tiring day just doing the admin my problem has started again as, straight away. I had to start dealing with the kind of time waster that immediately requests more photographs and has that nasty English habit of passive-aggressively suggesting that one Ebay item is either a scam or slightly fraudulent/displaying the item not as it truly is. With that one iv’e simply stopped answering questions and revised the listing to be clear enough for an anal retentive buyer to understand ; if anything iv’e treated that potential tire kicker as annoying but useful in that it made me clarify my advert.

The whole idea of the not so great sell off was firstly to raise funds for whatever grand idea stays in my mind long enough to warrant working on it and secondly so that I don’t have to walk past the boat/trike/outboard and every day come to the conclusion that these are luxury items that are mostly in my way when i’m working on the workshop project. As with the Pathfinder, which absorbed so much of my thinking time, it’s now out of my mind even though getting rid of it was painful at the time. Any funds that I raise from selling several things won’t go towards another passing enthusiasm although funds might go towards materials for a teardrop style camping trailer – that would benefit both of us such that we could go off on trips at the drop of a hat. Funds might also go towards buying some expensive tools for the workshop ; I have on my bucket list a new and smaller drill press, a small bandsaw, several new battery powered tools and even a welding set – I really need to learn how to do simple welding.