Two projects currently on the go. Actually there are more, but these two are centre front!

First, the automatic gate opener. I bought this some time ago, and started installing it, and it’s still not finished. The first part of the job was to re-hang the gate so that it would open and close smoothly, or, as the instruction manual had it, ‘oscillate fluently’. Having done that, best part of a day’s work, we then had to wire up and instal the solar panel, battery and motor. The instruction manual, which was so eloquent when it came to describing the movement of the gate, was sadly slightly obtruse over the details of the wiring. Like many things, I’m sure it would have been OK if I knew what I was doing, but since I didn’t ….

However, I have since been emailing the technical support guys, and I think I know what I have to do. Just have to find time to do it, in daylight. At least we got the battery connected to the solar panel, so it should have been charging over the last few days, although it doesn’t seem as if the battery is fully charged yet.

The second project I am on firmer ground with. A friend of my daughter’s just had a (very premature) baby, and I wanted to make a small gift. I found a cute fish here and downloaded the pattern. It’s pretty simple, and I probably could have drawn it myself, but I needed something straightforward. I dug around in the stash to find some suitable scraps of colourful fabric, and I’m halfway there. Will post photos when it’s finished. It might be something that I can get into and get finished within a couple of days, unlike most of the other things I take on.

i got a reply from an online journal that I had submitted an article to this morning, and got excited when I saw the subject and sender in my email inbox. Short lived excitement though, ‘thank you for the opportunity to read the piece, it is not for us’, or words to that effect. I can’t remember now how many submissions I have out there, but I’m sure I should be doing more, there can’t be many left that I haven’t heard about. How many at one time is a good number, I wonder?