Inadvertent Purchase

Having been tinkering around with the x-y table and my pillar drill, I've been looking at buying a small drill/mill, the problem is the decent sized ones are just too big for my garage without some major reoganisation, but there's a little Clarke CMD10 which can be bought new at about £450. Well that's too much for something that's just for tinkering with. I saw one on an Ebay auction at £240 but there were a few days to go and often the price suddenly shoots up in the last minutes or seconds. Anyhow I kept an eye on it and no one seemed to be bidding. The problem for me is that it is in Oldham which is rather a long way off. Anyhow with just a minute to go it was still £240 and I thought, if it sells for that, I'd wish I'd stuck in a bid.... so I bid £250, fully expecting it to climb up to near £300.
I won it! I'm now in the process of sorting out a courier. It seems that UPS will be a decent price, prob' less than £50, mind it's very difficult to get a quote without providing reams of info' so I can't get an exact price until it's packed up ready for shipment.

Meanwhile I've been footing a set of arrows for the Autumn when it will be neither too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet etc and I'll get a couple of field shoots in. The two nearest venues to me are rather stony and tend to snap the points off arrows if you find a stone. (maybe I should try to hit the target more often)

I've also been tidying the garage to make room for the mill and to sort out some staves. I chucked a few weaselly limbs of Ash, Hornbeam and Hawthorn that I'd saved in a fit of optimism, but they simply weren't any good... mind I still have plenty of dodgy staves!
I came across one that Piers had given me, very thin sapwood, dark heartwood, but with a lot of shakes in it. I made him a gorgeous character Mollegabet style bow some years back ,but it eventually failed. I don't know if this bit will fare any better, I'll keep it fairly long and wide and fingers crossed. I marked it out and roughed it through the band saw. It may need some heat straightening... we'll see.