Letterbox

Latest breaking news is that I have put the finishing touches on the famous letterbox
which caused so much hullabaloo last weekend.

The finishing touch was to borrow Searlo's angle-grinder to get the old letterbox post out. Now, I'm not an avid angle-grinder at the best of times. I mean, it's fun to cut stuff up & all, but there's always the thought in the back of my mind that one slip & I'll lose an arm or leg. Or that the dog will want to come & help me & she'll lose a paw. Today there were two added stresses. First, I was angle grinding metal so there were sparks flying everywhere. Second, there was the thought that maybe last weeks gas leak was still active & I would blow the whole street up.

At this point I should point out that this is the first solo home handyman project I've done by myself in the year since we moved in to #5. In that time my darling wife has re-landscaped the back garden, painted half the house, planted an entire new ecosystem, painted the fence and gutters ... the list goes on. My only project has been of the slow and stealthy type. I first decided to make a letterbox when we found a large brass #5 in New York last October. I bought it off a Chinese lady for $5 (I still remember how she got angry when I asked her if it would have been $4 if I lived at #4 -- she shouted something about how they retail for $12 over the road). The letterbox materials (wood, etc.) were bought at Christmas, and I really started construction in April for a June finish. Only 6 months over schedule and a factor of 5 over budget !!

The letterbox, as you can see from the attached photo, as a fine specimen and was well worth the trouble. Pippa has been posted as guard dog, as the box has already had death threats of baseball bat variety. From the angle photographed you can see that the box almost as big as the house, and constructed to a much higher standard. Now it's time for a coffee, and to think about what's next in my busy handyman schedule ...