The Tea Trolley. Leitz Summitar 50mm

I finished the tea trolley/cart - depending on your side of the Atlantic – today.  This is an addition to our household so that we may easily convey our meals from the kitchen to the balcony to enjoy the few precious days of fine weather which Boston offers in the summer.  It was a year in the making, and a lifetime - almost - in its conception. 
Way back when, growing up in 1960s and 70s South Africa, my family undertook an annual trip from Cape Town to visit my aunt and uncle – Crispin’s parents - in the Eastern Cape.  The journey usually involved a stop for tea along the way at one of my mother’s cousins.  This lady was married to a chap who had worked as a civil engineer for the Railways before his retirement.  To occupy his days, hubby had taken to making furniture in his little shop out in the garage behind the house.  His creations then migrated indoors to fill the living room.  It’s a long time ago, more than fifty years, so I don’t remember all the details, but my impression is that his designs came from well-thumbed copies of woodworking magazines for the hobbyist: practical maybe, elegant, not so much.  His creation, of course, with relevance to the Blip, was a tea cart which was loaded with a cake and freshly baked scones in honor of our visit, along with a bepetalled tea pot and matching cups.  Then the trolley would commence its epic voyage from kitchen to living room across a turbulent sea of uneven floor boards foamed with Oriental rugs.  The trolley was not really equal to the task.  The legs swayed violently, the joints groaned and creaked, indeed like a schooner tossed upon stormy seas.  The wheels threatened to fall off…  We, the guests, would watch in stupefaction as the battle to defy gravity played out before us. My uncle, if he happened to be there, would offer a sotto voce running commentary in a deadpan voice intended to make us laugh out loud in the midst of the horror show. 
This memory came to me when I was designing our cart.  I swore - to myself, of course - that I was never going to face the humiliation of seeing a meal catapulted into space by bad mechanics.  Structurally, this was to be the trolley to end all trolleys. I will spare you the details, dear readers, but it took a year to make and I may still be forced to eat my words.  Tea trolleys are notorious for these maladies.