There’s a portmanteau hashtag #mayke that people use for things that they make in May, and that seems like an appropriate theme for this week.

But first of all, I started the week at a gig. Along with friends from my Irish classes, I went to see Kneecap at the Dome in Tufnell Park. They’d originally been booked to play a much smaller room, but that sold out in an hour and it was quickly upgraded to a bigger venue. It was packed.

In a dark gig venue, a crowd, hands in the air, is illuminated by the lighting from a stage on which three people are performing, two with microphones in hand, one in a DJ booth towards the back.

Kneecap on stage

The crowd was raucous but good-natured, and I had a good time. I had the chorus to C.E.A.R.T.A. stuck in my head for a day afterwards.

I joined the South London Makerspace. I signed up to the waiting list a while back, and received my invitation a couple of weeks ago, along with the details of the next open evening. That was on Wednesday, so I went down to have a look and see what I would be getting for my membership fee, and to see whether it’s accessible enough that I’d actually go there.

The fragmented nature of transport in South London means that a lot of places fall into the “you can’t get there from here” category, and Herne Hill, where the Makerspace is, is one of those. There are no good public transport routes from home: they all take at least an hour, and if you have to change modes then they’re also expensive.

However, fortunately, the route by bicycle is quick (it takes me about 35 minutes) and fairly pleasant, apart from a few hilly bits.

I’ve joined, set up my direct debit, and I’m looking forward to getting inducted onto enough of the equipment that I can make use of it. There are things that I’ll never have at home like a pillar drill or table router, but which I’ll definitely use. There are other things that open up new possibilities, like the CNC machines. I’ve already got ideas for those.

I finished my cheap electric guitar glow-up project, turning an apparent sow’s ear of a guitar into a silk purse. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with it that a bit of care and attention couldn’t fix, and that’s what I did. I’ve written about what I did and how I did it in a separate post.

We had lunch at the Canada Water Market on Saturday. The market has been steadily growing over the past few years, and it’s now open on both days of the weekend, and busy. This has always been a convenient area to live in because it’s so central, but it’s also been quiet and relatively poorly served for shopping and eating. It looks like that’s finally changing, and I’m happy to see it.