There have been two significant events this week that have bought about new demands on my time and necessitated Gleda being put on hold for a couple of weeks at least.

Firstly last Sunday when Gail my girlfriend received a phone call out of the blue to tell her that the house she’d been renting for 8 years was to be sold. I don’t propose to go into the details here but suffice to say that this had the potential to turn into a difficult hunt for a suitable rental property in an area where demand is very high, property is in short supply and with some severe financial limitations hindering the options. As luck would have it though the larger two bedroomed cottage next to mine had been vacated a couple of weeks ago and, with some prompt action by me and an accommodating landlord I’ve been able to secure the rental by the skin of my teeth. It’s a great relief and we’re both really looking forward to moving in together and starting afresh. It’s another example of how something that at first appeared unwanted and negative has in fact pushed us into making changes that will make life a bit easier and I’m sure make us both happier.

So over the next few weeks I’ll be moving all my stuff next door and wading through all the paperwork to change address and utilities etc and then once that’s sorted making a start on Gails place. Which leads into the second time suck!

On Wednesday Gail was rushed into hospital for an emergency operation to remove her appendix. She’s recovering well and hopefully will be out of hospital in a few days but her recuperation will take 4-6 weeks during which time she’ll be unable to drive and certainly won’t be able to lift anything! She’ll be staying with her mother for the first few weeks at least and that means a longer drive for me to go visit. It also means that she’s going to need a lot of help to sort out, pack and move her stuff and there’s a lot of it! Let’s just say that a major de-clutter was well overdue!

Added to these two little tasks is the ever more urgent need to increase my income. My business is beginning to grow but I need to do more, particularly now that my day to day expenses are increasing. I’m working hard on two sides of my business at the moment. Website Voodoo is the ‘public’ face of my Company and provides Internet Marketing Services to small and medium businesses with particular emphasis on Keyword/Market Research, Google Places and SEO. My primary lead generation vehicle is Business Networking which is effective but time consuming, as is the work that results from it, but it is my best income generator at the moment and will continue to be so for the next year at least.

Behind the scenes I am also starting to build up my website and domain trading business Webmark Trading. This will be my long term asset builder and income source and it’s the area of online business I most enjoy. It’s absolutely essential that I dedicate enough time to this to keep it moving forward as my aim is to start winding down Website Voodoo in 12-18 months so that I can replace time consuming income generation with this lower demand higher reward business and start moving closer to the 4 Hour Work Week (The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich)
I’ve dreamed about for so long!

As regular readers will have spotted I’ve made a concerted effort to write something on this blog everyday and I will continue to do so. I’ve found that trying to separate different parts of my life onto different blogs simply didn’t work. The Gleda Project is my life and as I’ve said many times before it’s not about building a boat. It’s about creating a better life and it just so happens that for me building Gleda has been the key to making huge changes that have made me happier, healthier and more excited about the future than I’ve ever been.

Because of that I feel that sharing all of my experiences outside of the build is vital to the understanding of who I am and why I’m doing what I’m doing. I truly hope that those that have followed me thus far will agree and to those that are simply interested in building boats I apologise but I will continue to write from my heart and although a lot of it will be of little interest to others I truly hope that some of it might amuse, educate and inspire.  Either way I’ll keep it coming.

Forward Cabin Section Template Beginning To Take Shape

I’ve been using a 50:50 mix of fast and slow hardener for the epoxy but I can see I’m going to have to revert to fast soon. All these things remind me that I am entering my 4th Winter in the barn and time is flying past. If I’m to hit my target of getting the hulls enclosed before the weather really turns then I need to crack on.

I’ve done OK today as I got the polystyrene all glued into place and weighted on the portside cabin top which means I should get it finished this weekend. I also spent quite a bit of time playing with hardboard templates for the forward and aft sections of the cabin sides. Because I’ve changed the heights I can’t use the dimensions on the plans so I’m using the hardboard to experiment and get things right before I go cutting any expensive ply. On the plus side I’ll be able to use the same templates for the port hull so things will go far quicker.

Decent dry fit at last!

Cabin Roof down safe

Today I spent some time getting reacquainted with the tumblehomes. I confess I’ll be very very glad to see the back of them, for me they’ve been the most frustrating part of the build so far. As I said before, when I dropped the cabin roof into place I could see that the second set of tumblehomes I’d cut months ago still didn’t fit so today I’ve re-cut two of them and made two new ones and I now have a full set of properly fitting tumblehomes on the starboard hull. After dry fitting them I manhandled the cabin roof back down onto the floor and turned it upside down so that I can sand and epoxy the inside before it’s fitted. It’s a big section to handle on your own and I was scared silly I’d drop it but with a bit of care and a lot of sweat I got it down OK.

Today I started construction of the second large section of main cabin roof and also spent a bit of time playing with the fit of the completed one over the starboard main cabin. Pleasingly it dropped into place really well and it was immensely satisfying to see how well the curved deck section married up to the curved top of the main bulkhead I fitted so many months ago.

Roof Section In Place Over Starboard Cabin

Two decks with first coat of epoxy

Anyway that was last week and this week I’ve been super busy with my business and just didn’t get a chance to get to the barn. My hand was forced today though as some tree felling down the lane meant that I had no electricity for most of the day so I couldn’t work at home anyway.

The weather has turned this week and it was 23′C in the epoxy shack this afternoon, very pleasant indeed. I had a good work session and got the starboard deck and tumblehomes nicely dry fitted then took both deck section off, inverted them and got the first coat of epoxy on what will be the forecabin deckheads (ceilings). Much easier to do this now than try and work overhead in a cramped cabin.

As I said in the title of this post I don’t know where the time goes., in two weeks time we’re off to Portugal for 10 days, a holiday that seemed an eternity way not so long ago. Ah well it’s all good and I’ll be making sure that the next two weeks are super productive