Niamh’s Pink Ukulele
“In the early days of your incarnation as Penfriend, when COVID was still “a thing”, I used my time to have the dullest midlife crisis ever.
I painted small Subbuteo teams. I baked cakes. And, apparently, I ordered a “build your own ukelele” kit online. A drunken late night purchase from somewhere in China.
It arrived with no instructions at all.
Eventually, with nothing else to do, I decided that it would be a nice lockdown project for me and my then three-year old daughter. We used our daily allocated outside time to sit in the downstairs car park and we sanded, and glued, and painted the rickety bits of wood.
It was decided early on (by my daughter) that the ukulele would be pink. So we made it bright pink. And over the course of a few weeks it came together, and we had our own, imperfectly formed uke. We spent 400% more than the original purchase price to complete it, adding new strings, new tuning heads and more paint than was required.
The ukulele barely stays in tune. Even now, neither of us can play it with anything approaching competence. But it’s a nice reminder of a grim time for everyone. We made it together.
Every so often, Niamh will go and get it from her room and bash away at it. Part-covered in stickers from bands of various vintages – including Penfriend, obviously – it won’t ever provide perfect sound.
But it is ours, which more than makes up for the imperfections.”
Paul and Niamh McGreal
Would you like to read another story?
Come back to the basement…