In 1987, I bought a chopping block from our local butcher, Monsieur Prost, in Collonges Fort L’Ecluse. It is a fantastic thing. The slab is made from hundreds of square oak blocks and the undercarriage is very solid pine of some sort. It weighs a ton!

It has travelled from France To California, then California to France and France to California again. It is now in the apartment in San Francisco. We used it as a work bench and it has suffered.

I decide to restore it to its former glory.

I make very little progress, the oak blocks are very hard and dismiss my little sander with a Gallic shrug.

James suggest we get a serious belt sander. This changes the game.

The new sander does a much better job. We spend hours sanding off the stains and damage.

I also give 3 coats of varnish to the undercarriage.

I am not very happy with final result. The teak oil I use on the boat in Okinawa brings out the texture and grain of the wood with little change in colour. This teak oil stains the wood a strange turmeric/yellow. Still it is much better than before and I am glad to give new life to the chopping block that must date from the heroic era of French butchery in the 40s or 50s.

On a different subject, the house renovation has been static for the last 4 months. This is great as we pay much reduced rent whilst the work is ongoing.

A big superstructure has been built onto the back of the house to give more room.

It is also a great place to sit and look out onto the backyard.

We buy a bench to sit on.

Simple pleasures.