Late for work

4th July 2025

Riding my bike to a carpentry job in Camden, I spied a load of wood out the front of a property. I stopped my bike to get a better look. Any delay would me late for the job, but I knew I could explain it. The client understands my hankering for plankering (free wood addiction). I asked the (very) young man with a tool belt on - that's how I knew he was the one to ask, otherwise I would have thought he was a schoolboy! - whether the wood was going to be scrapped. He said it was and I asked if I could take it. He opened the door to the property and asked somebody I couldn't see. He returned to me and said you can take whatever you like. The whole time, I was trying to compute: 

1. How I was going to get the wood to the studio

2. How much time it was reasonable to be late

The lady of the house came out and I explained my love of free wood. We had a nice chat and she actually ended up inviting me in to take a look at her fence that had fallen down. We exchanged numbers and she said she'll get in touch with some work after the works in her house are finished. 

It turns out she is also an artist. She studied at the Ruskin School of Fine Art in Oxford and her work is classical. Her son is also an artist and she said he is looking for a studio space so I recommended getting in touch with Bow Arts (the organisation who I rent my studio from). 

After about 15 minutes of standing about chatting, I suddenly realised I had to go. I had reached the acceptable cut-off for tardiness. 

I went to work  and ended up having a really physically difficult day. There was a lot of very heavy lifting and straining in the hot sun which emptied the tank. When I finished at 5pm I was a shell of my former self. I went to the Portugese Deli at the corner of the street and bought two cold bottles of Sagres beer. The machine wasn't working so I had to stand about and wait while three shop-keepers tired to sort the machine. I was suffering so much and dying for a beer, so having this prolonged wait was agonising. I finally got the beers and as soon as I got outside, I stopped and downed four or five gulps. This is technique for my first beer - to drink as much as I can before it's too painful from the bubbles. Four is my usual. Five is rare and six has only happened once. Lager is just too fizzy. The wall of bubbles gets the better of me. 

I cycled back and stopped outside the church on Redhill street where there is a quiet step out of the sun and out of the public eye. It was a really peaceful sit I had there after everything. I realised I still had to shift that wood, which meant:

cycling home to pick up my car, clearing out whatever was in the boot, driving to Albert street, speaking to the lady, loading the wood, driving to the studio, unload the wood, take it to the fifth floor, store it somewhere, drive home. In the meantime, I had a moment of peace to myself to drink my tiny little cold beer. 

Camden Council have made a metal gate which means that I can no longer drive to the forecourt outside the studio block. Instead I have to park in the street and walk at least 100 metres with all my crap. This is a WILD inconvenience and I curse the council every time I have to spend 15 minutes instead of 2 unloading my car. Each boot load I can only carry 1/6 or so of what I have so the 100 metre walk ends up as being at least 600 metres because I have to make 6 trips to get to the door which I used to be able to park outside. It's pretty galling after a hot day of hard labour at 6pm on a Friday. 

So I don't know why I'm smiling in this photo. 

I was trashed and eggy. I guess it's instinct when you have a camera pointed at you. Having said that, the haul was good, which is what all this fight is for!: 1m2 of marine ply, x3 1m lengths of 2x4, 7m of 2x2, a great gnarly 2m length of naily wood (this will get converted into a decking joist), plus some bits and bobs