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Hi

Hello everyone,
Another week gone by and ending with some good news regarding the vaccine for Covid. Maybe we’ll get the shed open again by Easter as long as we don’t have a Christmas fiasco instead of Fiesta. Hopefully people will realise they have to get two doses of the vaccine before they have a degree of immunity and they can’t get immunity just from the promise of the vaccine being here!
The Men’s Shed weather forecasting service certainly helped me out this month. I usually go up to Harlaw as close as possible to the first of the month to give a greasing to the turbine bearings and a general inspection. With the snow forecast I decided yesterday to get up there and get the job done and was quite thankful of that when I woke up to a white world this morning. Still had to go out and clear the path to the house though as the coalman was delivering coal this morning. Winter is here!
I don’t have a lot of Shed News this week, we’ve had the offer of an old, rusty but serviceable large vice which I have accepted in the hope that when we get together again Stewart can work his magic on it as a demo of his skills which were repeated on the repair shop on TV the other night! I think their version of electrical safety was even more hairy than Stewarts! I learnt very early on in my seagoing career that dipping things into salt water that were not too well insulated usually ended up with a loud bang and an expensive repair.
Lyall has all the Charity Annual Documentation ready to go, signed off by our independent scrutineer and awaiting Ian and my signatures as Trustees. I’m going to get Ian’s signature on Monday when Geof, John and myself go over to Colinton to complete the installation of Mary and Joseph in their stable if all goes to plan. If this weather keeps up we’ll need a sledge not a trailer.
Mary and I now have the keys of our new house and have started making plans – lots of them- but once we learn how to measure things properly, write the sizes down and then translate mirror images into reality we may get somewhere in the direction of forward. I started on the garage and workshop so now can’t find any tools when I need them but the chaos will hopefully sort itself out over the next few weeks. Mary is most frustrated because her one big opportunity to spend on lots of new things for the house just isn’t going to happen as she doesn’t like shopping online for materials and furniture and at the moment we can’t even go to Ikea as it is in a different Tier. I’m just smiling! However she then decided that one of the rooms needs painting before we move and frustration set in again as the first three tried today can’t come before February! Is Alastair McKenzie taking orders before Christmas?
I hope to see some of you on Zoom tomorrow morning, timed that nicely as a cleaner is coming to the new house tomorrow so I can’t make a mess until she has finished. I’ll catch up with some of you then.
Cheers for now, stay safe and well.
Alister



Alister Skinner
Chairman
Pentlands Men's Shed