Lockdown building - a bed for Ev and the economics of tools

Ev had outgrown his bunk bed - both in length, and in head knocks (the desk and wardrobe were underneath).  It was all a bit of a problem, his room, as you know, is utterly tiny, 1.97m wide, and probably 3.5m long.  Full size beds, unless they are mattress stands with no edges, hotel style (but without any headboard) are typically around 1,95 long, and man, you have to get that sucker in and in the right position.  The room is really not big enough for a double bed, width-wise, again assuming you could get that in - so how to create some joy in a tiny space?  Ideally, I thought, a 3/4 - which is not quite a double.  These however are surprisingly expensive in Hong Kong - like 6K expensive.  So we collectively scratched our heads, and after much thinking and inspecting, we decided to build a bed, quite high off the ground, so that he has some storage space, and can see out of the cell-sized window.  Wood is a bit of challenge in Hong Kong.  Having scoured around the internet - and finding some maybe places all the way out near the Chinese border in places like Yeun Long - I decided that we were going to buy some rough, unfinished builder's pine beams, two rough hardwood beams (one for the wall struts, one for the front edge which would take extra weight with Pickle jumping on and off it, and a power planer to turn the rough stuff into neat.  Total cost, 2.2K.  And it worked (and we still have the power planer as change :-).  That machine is an absolute beast, gobbles wood, and pretty much effortlessly turned out some perfectly finished beams; Ev measured where the holes had to go, drilled and countersunk them, and we turned it out in no time. 

The rough stuff removed in a flash.  Filled a big bin bag with shavings. 
Should come with a free hamster.

Evan getting loooonger by the day, massive feet, measuring for drilling.
How cool are those beams?  Spotless stuff.

Ev smiling at the thought of getting a new bed.

 

Far from the finished article, but you get the idea - the mattress is Covid slow, so will only arrive next week (if then) so he has his old mattress in the interim (with an old fold-out below it to catch falling phones and I-pads in the interim.  The cosmetics will follow and we will send you an update.  

A big fall

On Sunday there was a band in the bay, using Simon's Black Shrimp as the stage.  It looked fabulous from the patio...

Where I was recovering from a larger-than-before bicycle crash...

the main injury of which was this little beauty on my thigh, with an obligatory thread of gauze still sticking to its oozy surface.  As the hours tick by, it morphs from graze to bruise.

Big Blue was not as lucky, having both scrapes and breakages.  One of my bike's little customizations are these old school Goats of Gevenalle friction shifters, which they integrate into a cheap (but well designed and made) pair of Tektro RL520 brake levers.  Having the RL520 pair which came on the bike and which I replaced with the Gevenalle shifters, I could take them apart and replace the broken mount and road eaten shifter lever with a new mount and shifter lever scavanged from other parts.  

Ground off the worst of the sharp road surface created edges here and there...

And Big Blue is back, just needing bar tape and the straightened out front mudguard. 

A family moment - Hong Kong hand-back holiday

In many respects we (the HK family) have been pretty woeful during the time of Covid-19.  In so many ways it represents an opportunity for closeness, rediscovering common interests and ties.  Somehow it seemed to have the opposite effect.  With the exception of eating together daily (itself a wonderful thing, and of course such an opportunity to fight and shout at each other ;-) we've been living separate lives together - people off in their own little worlds ... obsessions, anesthetics of one sort or another (Fifa, Netflix, reading) ...vices and devices.

This started to bug me - and given we are far from through this pandemic (has it even really started yet?) - I thought there would be time to remedy this mental and emotional diaspora.  But what to do?  How can a collective event adequately fulfill individual interests?  Somehow, Big Wave Bay (generally a misnomer, specifically so today judging from the surf report) or Shek O seemed to be the best option: the boys could skim, Ange could read in the sun, and I could go for a long swim - and in between we would be hanging out together.  The challenge however was wounding heat from about 9.30 on, and a public holiday which promised beach numbers greater even than those in supposedly social distancing places like Florida (which got so zoo despite the Covid-19 spike, that they have now been closed for the 4th of July holidays) and the, frankly lunatic, South coast of England.  The solution for us was convincing the insanely-late-sleeping-teenagers to get up at 5.30am.  Blow me down they did!

It was overcast to begin with - but still brutally hot and humid - Ev heading downrange - the Western side of the beach has a slope and step that the boys like - witness the thundering surf.  I love the old beach dai-pai-dong at the end of the beach - looking a bit ghostly and disheveled at this time of day. 

The sun soon arrived and they were hard at it.

The thing that I do like about skimming is the massive workout it is, the sudden desire to spend a chunk of the morning doing short sprints.

A happy Pickle as the sun and the heat starting winding up.  We headed home at 8, which makes me laugh.

Stop for a stock-up at the P&S on the way home.  Ev back on his device.  Aiden headed in to help Ange. 
Happy holiday car.