Oh No ... it's not about pegs is it?

Are you sitting comfortably? Well make sure you are because I have a story to tell and some pictures to show you.


For the last seven years I have been building a "Cutler" style roll top desk. I have constructed it almost entirely from Australian River Red Gum which I have bought as rough planks from a lovely guy who runs a wood yard in the Barmah Forest in deepest Victoria.



Red Gum is an exceedingly hard wood and is consequently very heavy. It has a wonderful variety of grains with heaps of blemishes which give it a fantastic character. I have used railway nails collected from the remains of the old Ghan railway in South Australia as handles for some of the drawers.

Why has it taken me seven years? Well, apart from the fact that I am not an expert cabinet maker, this desk is very complex and I have incorporated much more than mere woodwork. My desk is unique and I thought I would tell you about some of its more interesting features.



Firstly of course there is the roll top or 'tambour' as it is known in the trade (not that I am in the trade you understand). The special feature of my tambour is that it is activated by a remote control which automatically opens the desk.

As a child I was always fascinated my my mother's writing desk which had a secret compartment and so I have included lots of secret cupboards and controls within the desk.

I have hidden my computer in a drawer and there is an electronic control which causes the keyboard and screen to rise up and open from within the desk. This control also switches on the computer. Yes, I know I could have just used a lap-top, but that is just way too easy!



My printer is hidden deep within the bowels of the desk and when I use it, pages magically appear in one of my drawers. I haven't yet found a way of automatically inserting more paper into the printer hopper so at the moment I have a hidden device which causes the side of the desk to slide open and reveal the printer so that I can re-fill it.



At the front of the desktop there is a small carved cupboard door which opens by means of a voice activated control. This control will, not only switch on the internal light, but also tell me if anyone else has attempted to open it.

Intruders B E W A R E !!

Incidentally, the door of this cupboard is a carved Celtic knot design which has great personal meaning for me. I do not know the Celtic origins, but to me represents "Perseverence".



As the desk is nearing completion (at long last I hear most of you say ...) my thoughts have turned to the chair. For some time I have been looking for a suitable chair but not one single chair had all the design features that I wanted. DB said ... "Well, if you've managed to design and make your own desk, surely a chair wouldn't be that difficult .." WELL I ask you!!

After much contemplation (I never do anything quickly) and a bit of serendipitous luck on e-Bay, I finally found a chair that I liked and as it is made in Oak, I have decided to copy the "Captain's Chair" design in Red Gum. That way, I satisfy both my demands, and those of DB which can't be bad.



I'll keep you posted as to its progress, and once I've finished it, I'll be sitting comfortably, just like you.

T.V. or not T.V. .... that is the question

Well here is a strange looking item in my collection. Strictly speaking it shouldn't be there, but it is still a peg and illustrates one of the many uses that the humble clothes peg has been put to.

Apparently, when televisions were first introduced into America and they had more than one channel, the TVs weren't equipped with the means to change the channel ... can you believe that? No remotes? No twiddly knobs? How did they change to the other side?

Don't quote me, but I have been told that the householders put up an aerial or antenna for each channel and ran the cables down to their lounge.

Attached to the TV by wires and hanging down at the back were these pegs which they would use to connect the TV to the antenna - I wouldn't like to have changed channels when there was lightning about.

Back from Bangkok

Well, I am finally back to a computer and can tell you a tale about my Bangkok experiences.

On our way to England, in May of this year DB and I stopped off in Bangkok for five days and whilst she went in search of fripperies like crystal tiara's and silken pashminas, I continued my serious search for pegs. One day we took the skytrain to Chatuchak Market which is only open on Saturdays and Sundays.

It is the biggest market in the world 15,000 stalls and a map to help you find your way around. You would expect me to say that I found hundreds of new pegs, but no, I only found three stalls selling pegs and these netted me the dark blue one in the picture, the silver steel one and the light green ring one, the remainder were purchased in the various shopping centres around the city. We love Bangkok, it is a bright, bustling and friendly city with a golden temple around almost every corner. We used the water taxis frequently - as much for the exhilarating rides as for the economy.
We had been to Bangkok before in 2001 and that time we found a narrow alley near to Chinatown which was an Aladdin's cave of treasures.
I was in heaven and filled a large carrier bag full of new pegs. On my return to England, I put all our luggage into the back of our small Fiesta van and drove to our base which is in a block of council flats in deepest Gloucestershire.

Being tired and feeling lazy I carried as much luggage as possible into the flat and left the rest for the morning. Late next day after a deep jet lagged sleep and a long lie in, I went to the car and was horrified to find that the back and side van windows had been smashed and my precious pegs stolen. I have bitterly regretted leaving that precious bag of pegs in the back of the van....but how do you convince someone else how precious they are?

Obviously I had to make a claim on the insurance for the windows which meant I had to report the crime. You try telling a policeman that only a bag of pegs was stolen. I could tell that the one in front of me was thinking sad thoughts about me and just couldn't appreciate my loss.

No, I didn't claim for the pegs on the insurance - perhaps I should have claimed for the air fare back to Bangkok to replace them - but .....somewhere in the neighbourhood, there is a garden with very unusual Thai clothes pegs holding the washing onto the line..................

Laid Back and Sidetracked

You may have noticed a shortage of blogs lately and I have to say that I have been a little bit sidetracked what with overseas visitors and the mad scramble to get my new storage system up and fixed before our departure for foreign lands.

I am hoping to see some new places in the world this year, but in the meantime have been seeing a little more of Australia. This photo was taken on Melbourne's Southbank.



This is our visitor outside the Shrine of Rememberance the day before Anzac Day



Iconic Brighton Beach


William Ricket's Sanctuary is a really good start to any visit to Melbourne



Ballarat Wildlife Park .... one of the best places to take visitors



Trash and Treasure in the Sunday Market at Bentleigh


Looking down on the Casino from the top of the Rialto Tower


The Block Arcade in Melbourne's city centre


This old man is a banksia nut in Cheltenham Park


and this is the beautiful babysoft banksia flower



OK - enough now. Sorry about the lack of pegs in this posting, but I will be back on track soon - I hope!

Getting Things in Order

I am always amazed when I see other people's collections and I wonder how they manage to catalogue them in order to know exactly what they have got and what they have not. This doesn't just apply to pegs of course, I recently saw a television program about a guy collecting dice ... he had thousands and thousands and I cannot begin to imagine how he knows what he has or hasn't got in his collection.

I am a systematic kind of person and when my collection began to grow, I had to come up with a way of recording the pegs and this is what I do:

As soon as I receive a new peg I check to see if I already have it by comparing it to all my other pegs which are displayed on racks. With my cataloguing system, I only have to check it visually against half a dozen others.

Once I am sure it is a new one, I give it the next number that is available and attach a label to it with it's identifying number on it. The photo shows an example of each spring type.

I categorise them firstly by their spring design and these are the designs I have:-

CONVENTIONAL...................... see Peg No 1368
WIRE CLIP........................ see Peg No 1345
LEAF SPRING....................... see Peg No 48
BUTTERFLY SPRING................. see Peg No 436
SELF.............................. see Peg No 854
RING.............................. see Peg No 873
WIDE CLIP......................... see Peg No 187
COIL COMPRESS.................... see Peg No 478
COIL TENSION..................... see Peg No 293

By the way, I have no idea why I choose to call one of them a "butterfly" spring but there must have been a reason.

Anyway, I have already measured the new peg accurately using vernier callipers so I now enter into a database, the details of when and from where I acquired it, then the weight, cost and length of it.

The new peg is then clipped into it's correct spot (by length) in the rack holding those of its spring design.

The racks run down the entire length of my hall and there is plenty of room for more pegs, but I must say that I am rather pleased that I am not collecting dice!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. I thought I'd take this opportunity to show you a few of my Easter pegs .... hope you like them. They were a present from DB's sister.

I have more easter pegs to come ... but have to rush out now as we are having an Easter Barbie in the hills with some friends.


p.s. .....

I'm back now and here is a virtual Easter Egg for you!!