On Tuesday, I went out for a walk. I hadn’t been out for three days - I don’t go out at the weekend and couldn’t be bothered on Monday, so went out on Tuesday. I was really just wanting to get out and take a walk, to nowhere really. I had to clear my head and hopefully make myself breath a little better. I’m suffering from seasonal allergies just now and it’s pretty horrendous, so I was hoping a walk to somewhere it isn’t humid and stuffy would be beneficial.

It would have been, if I’d stayed out longer. I decided to take a walk around the park, so made my way towards it. I stopped off at my favourite tree and hung around there a bit. I couldn’t really be bothered, so I went for a walk past the pond and around to one of the more open areas. Well, that’s when it got a little less fun. I got shouted at by a bunch of Non Educated Delinquents (NEDs) and really didn’t fancy getting into a confrontation, being all bunged up and all, so I left the park and sat around at a nearby bus stop for a bit.

I cursed the NEDs in my head and wished them all sorts of nastiness. They have absolutely no respect for anyone, not even themselves and it pisses me off. Sure, I could tell the police, but I’ve been down that route before and it just doesn’t work, even if you know their names, the police can’t seem to do a damned thing due to ‘lack of evidence or witnesses’. Well, you know why you’ve got lack of evidence or witnesses? It’s because you don’t have regular beat police.

I remember (this is the part when I sound older than I actually am) when I was wee and every single day, I saw at least five different police men walking the streets. I think the more you see of them, the more you respect them, with a healthy amount of fear as well, even if you’ve got nothing to fear. I always revered them and indeed for years I wanted to be one, but then I saw numbers of beat police decrease, crime rates rise and in my teenage years became really rather cynical of them. So, that’s when I stopped wanting to be a policeman and lost faith in them. It’s horrible losing faith in something, especially when you remember them being so good at their jobs and actually being respected.

Well, onto happier things now. I found my Dremel today. I was feeling like crap and was looking for a sucking candy to aid saliva production and possibly make me less dehydrated as a result. Also to make my throat feel better. I knew we didn’t have any in the kitchen, so I decided to head up to the loft. This is going to sound strange, but sometimes when my sinuses are really blocked, it helps to go up to the loft and just mess around. It’s always messy and dusty up there, so the dust helps to clear my sinuses. It’s odd, I know, that someone with dust allergies would go seeking out the very thing that irritates them, but it does make sense if you think about it: my nose is blocked, so I go to a dusty area, my nose gets irritated and I sneeze, so I blow it. By the time I’ve snoze (which I think is a better past tense of sneeze) a few times and blown my nose, I feel better, so it makes sense in a really masochistic way.

There are a lot of unintentional rhymes in this. That’s pretty cool, but not my point. Anyway, onto my point, of this part at least. I rummaged through a bag in the loft looking for my sucking candy. We put some sweets in the loft because we were getting a new kitchen fitted and had nowhere else to put them, you see. It turned out to be a useless endeavour, so I was just about to head down, when I saw this other bag.

For some reason, the bag called out to me. I picked it up and opened it and soon realised that it was the very bag that I’d been looking for. Years ago, we got the house rewired and we had to clear the rooms so that the workmen could get their wires and equipment in and work comfortably, so once again, things were stashed in the loft, one of them being my Dremel. I’d put the bag in a specific place, but someone had moved it, so I had no idea where it was, hence the Dremel being lost for years. There are a lot of bags in the loft, so it was pretty difficult looking through them all, especially when you’re constantly stopping to sneeze, taking time not to bash your head on the beams, which just for additional danger, have nails poking though them. Danger awaits in that damned loft!

I shall be getting on with some of my projects now. One of which is building a bass guitar. I only really need to build the body and strap the neck onto it, but it’s going to be fun, at any rate. I plan on using an old bamboo chopping board to do this and channel out pocket for the neck to sit in, using the Dremel. I may get someone to gift me a router bit for the Dremel, or just save up and buy it for myself, who knows? The one thing I do know, is that I’ll have to remove the fretboard of the old guitar neck and re-glue it back on because it isn’t in the proper position.

When I got my first bass, Mr Tangle, he was in a really bad state of repair and the strings were standing up about two inches from the fingerboard, so I tried everything to fix it myself. During one of my playing/fixing sessions, I broke the truss rod, which is a rod inside the neck of the guitar, which adjusts the bow of the neck and the tension of the strings. Most people like their necks to be as straight as possible, but I prefer a bit of a bow to it because I find it makes it easier to tap, which is a technique whereby you fret a note and literally tap on another fret to produce a sound, rather than plucking the note. That’s the simple explanation, I’ll not launch into the specifics.

So, yes, I broke the truss rod on my bass and had to get a new neck. I managed to get a new one and then got a new truss rod a few months later. I decided to fit the truss rod into the old neck and took the fretboard off, laying the new truss rod inside. It fitted perfectly, so I hurriedly (silly me!) put the fretboard back on and glued it up. It was only then that I realised that I’d done a really shoddy job, so I decided to just leave it. I took the frets off (the little wires embedded in the fretboard) and made it a fretless fingerboard.

Now, years later, I’ll finally be able to finish my project and it’s all due to finding my Dremel. Welcome home, Dremel, welcome home. I won’t be able to fully complete the project yet because I’ve still got to get the electronics and some of the hardware. The pots and jack cost hardly anything, but it’s the bridge that will cost the money. I plan on recycling a pickup which I bought for my acoustic guitar, but didn’t use because I thought the sound was a bit too ‘thin’ for the acoustic guitar, so I’ll try using it on the bass. If it sounds good, I’ll keep it, if not, I’ll save for a Bartolini one. The bridge is the bit where the stings are fed through and up onto the tuning pegs. That will cost quite a bit, but I intend to use a cheap one, which will still cost a bit, but it’ll be worth it. I plan on using chrome coloured hardware and keeping the wood natural, maybe just varnishing it to keep the finish looking and feeling nice.

I might go for a cycle tomorrow. I’ve been missing it and really should get fit again. After all, I’m giving up smoking, so I might as well reinforce it with something positive. I’ve always loved cycling, ever since I was wee and got my first bike, I always cycled. Usually really fast. I remember when I was wee and there was this dirt track where I lived. I used to go to the top of the hill and cycle down it and there was a really sharp hairpin bend at the bottom of it. The path was filled with tree roots and rocks and was pretty damned scary. That didn’t stop me going down it at great speed though. When I got to the bottom, I used to practically scrape along the ground to turn the corner, like a motorbike racer might do. Then there was another corner, which if you misjudged (me, misjudge it? Never!) it, you’d end up on the main road. Not a place where you wanted to be, if you favoured your life.

I really enjoyed doing stuff like that and today I still enjoy going fast. I even argue with cars. I have every right to use the road and when you’re going at an average speed of 14-15mph, it makes more sense to ride on the road, than it does to ride on the pavement and endanger pedestrians.

Which brings me to a rather nice bit in this rambling. There was one day when I was wee and I was riding my bike. I was doing my usual fast cycling and then my lace came undone. It got caught in the chain and I fell off. If you’re squeamish, you may wanna stop reading, but you’ll miss the nice bit. Rather spectacularly, I skidded and my t-shirt rode up, exposing my side. My jeans were pretty ripped from sliding along the pavement. I slid on the pavement for what felt like an eternity. I must have skidded on my side for at least a hundred yards, such was the speed at which I was travelling. Suffice to say, I was pretty damned scraped up. My friend, who was coming down the road to see me, saw this happening and ran up to me. He noticed that I was hurt and helped me up, propping me against the wall. It was one of those cases that I was too damned hurt to even cry. My friend went to the door and got my parents. My dad got my bike and my mum helped me up the stairs. My friend came into the house and offered me support, which was nice, but really I just wanted to be left alone.

The wound, however was pretty bad and dirty. It required attention right away, so my dad decided to break out the first aid kit. That was not pleasant. By this time, my t-shirt had covered the wound and adhered to it. It required the wound to be soaked, in order to get the t-shirt off. All the time, my friend sat there, encouraging me to be brave. He helped immensely. For weeks, the wound suppurated and wept and bled. The damned thing just wouldn’t heal, until one day, I was visiting my gran. She was asking how my cut was and I showed her.

“Oh, that’s nasty,” she said through sucked teeth.

Then she got out of her chair and went to the kitchen. She brought out a biscuit tin and rummaged around in it. She then exclaimed that she’d 'found it!’ and handed a tin to my mum. She laid out some dressings and my mum opened the tin. Inside the tin was some gauze. It had some sort of semi-sticky jelly-like fluid on it and was really cold. As soon as it touched my skin, it hurt, probably due to the antiseptic in it. It helped though. After two weeks or so, a scab managed to form, which my clothes tended to rub against, but it was more manageable than a damned suppurating wound, that’s for sure. During the time my wound was healing, my friend kept asking if I was okay. I always said I was, which was the truth. That gauze stuff really helped and so did his support. I still have the scar today and it serves as a reminder not to go too fast on my bike. Do I always listen? Do I hell!

There was something else I was gonna write, but I’m damned if I can remember. Oh well, I’ll just stop here. Beware of NEDs, don’t ride your bike too fast and value your friends, that’s a good life lesson, isn’t it?

I was going to go out today, but the damned Internet stopped me. Oh well. Now I need food, so better get this posted and get some food. No idea what, but I’m fancying a cuppa tea as well. Perhaps some spearmint and chamomile.

Be good, folk *kisses* (that kiss was for someone specific, but y’all feel free to steal one). The cover photo is an axolotl by the way. It has nothing to do with the piece. I just find it cute.