Happy New Year. And last year.

2019? Already? Gosh.

I could attempt to sum up everything that's been going on in life since the last post on here but frankly who has the time for that?

Highlights:

Another trip to Japan, this time with Middle Sis as well as Mr WithaY, which was fabulous. We're definitely going back, but not till after the 2020 Olympics.

A trip to Italy - Bologna - my first visit to the country and hopefully not my last.  The FOOD!  The WEATHER!  The Food!  Oh my dears. 

Arrival of a new family member - a great-niece who has been partly named after my lovely Mum (her great-grandma) and departure of others - splits rather than bereavements, thankfully.

Left a job which was making me utterly miserable, and found a new one just over a year ago which suits me far better.  I'm now working for an online bookseller, a bit like Amazon but much smaller and far less evil, doing customer service, a bit of marketing, and a bit of book selection. I get to look at forthcoming titles, read proofs, make suggestions and try to support authors and books which I think are worth supporting.  I love it.

I've also been able to reduce my hours so that I work a 4-day week now, which gives me one non-working day a week (as well as weekends) to get on with all the other stuff I like to do.

Mr WithaY and I have been having more work done on the house and garden. We are now the proud owners of a decent patio and driveway.  With flat level paving all round the house. And a new shed. 

There's also a pond in the offing; we have all the component parts and Mr WithaY has all the plans drawn up. It just needs a few days when he's around to get it all dug out/concreted in/assembled.  I'm a bit vague on the details. What I DO know is that there will be water lilies and irises, and a few little fish to make sure we're not inundated with mosquitos.

It took about 3 months to get all the work completed so we missed much of the glorious weather last summer, but I think we used the outside space more in the remaining couple of weeks of summer than we did the whole of the previous year. I am very much looking forward to this summer so we can get out there and enjoy the outside space.

We've both had some health stuff going on, nothing too life-threatening, but I have to have surgery at some point this year which will be tiresome. I had all the pre-op stuff done back in September and was cheerfully getting on with life under the assumption that I'd get a call for my operation in the next month or so at the latest.  No. 

I rang the relevant clinic today to find out if they had any idea when I'd have to show up.  There's an EIGHT month waiting list, so I am likely to be summoned to hospital in May or June.  Which would be ok if we hadn't just booked (and paid for) our summer holiday, which happens in May.

I have let the hospital know this.

How much do we bet that even though they have my unavailability dates, I will receive a letter from them asking me to come and have bits lopped out right in the middle of that period?

I shall be in Uzbekistan.

So. In the main, it's all ok. 

Stop, cock.

The water thing.  Part II.

The Wessex Water workmen didn't return the next day as originally promised, which meant we had a week or so with the jerry-rigged hosepipe supplying the house with running water.  In the meantime, the local plumber was summoned. He's a very charming young chap by the name of Ollie, does a good job, is polite, friendly and doesn't demand unlimited tea and biscuits. Plus the dog loved him.  He examined the work done outside, and then ferreted around the kitchen looking for water pipes.

He ascertained that all the pipes were sited behind the (new-ish) kitchen cabinets, so went to investigate the downstairs toilet for possible pipe access.

"Oh dear," he said. "It's a really nice little room, isn't it?"

Yes it is.  Thanks for noticing.  Oh, you mean too nice to hack holes in the walls to get to the pipes?  Yes, that too.

We had a cup of tea while we decided how best to approach the problem.  The problem being that the water pipes running from the OUTSIDE of the house to the INSIDE of the house are most likely in the same terrible colander-like state of corrosion as the external water pipes, and therefore need to be replaced.

And, of course, we have to arrange - and pay for - that part of the work to be done, hence the visit from Ollie the Plumber.  The tea drunk, we decided on a plan of action.  Sadly, some of the kitchen cupboard interiors would have to be sacrificed to the greater good, but there would be no visible damage to the exteriors.  I was ok with that, and set about emptying cupboards with a will. Mr WithaY deftly dismantled the complicated corner cupboard can-store mechanism thingy, and we were ready to go.

Well.  The plumber laid out giant dustsheets all over the kitchen floor and strewed a collection of tools across them.  The dog immediately sneaked in and stole one of his screwdrivers, carrying it proudly to Mr WithaY. We returned it, and tried to teach the dog what "Get the most expensive-looking drill" means, but to no avail.

Ollie the plumber began carving holes in the back of the cabinets.  He was very careful and tidy, but even so.  When you've spent a bloody fortune having your kitchen refitted from top to bottom, it's not much fun watching it being partially dismantled and hacked about to fix something that is beyond your control.

I closed the door and the dog and I sat companionably in the sitting room, trying not to listen to the sound of holes being drilled in the house.  Every so often I would pop my head into the kitchen and see how things were going.  There was a deep, deep hole running from the back of the cupboard out to the garden.  Ollie was trying to connect it up with the hole on the other side, and wasn't having much luck, it seemed.

The drilling continued, the house shook, the dust levels increased, and the long day wore on.

Eventually the plumber came and found me.  He was unable to go any deeper until we had the septic tank emptied, as it was so full that it was backfilling the hole as fast as he pumped it out.

Ugh.

So.  We booked the nice man with the shit-sucking truck to come and do the dirty deed, and once that was complete we could get the plumber back to connect up the interior pipework.  Once THAT was done the Wessex Water chaps could come back and reconnect our water supply to the proper underground pipes rather than the temporary blue plastic hose.

It was like some sort of evil nursery rhyme.  The old lady who swallowed the fly, then swallowed the spider and so on until she swallowed a horse*.  

Anyway.  Where there was once a deep pit several inches full of dirty water, now there is a tidy patch of concrete with a neat little plastic drain cover in it.  And we have a stopcock inside the house, which I don;t think we had previously.  All we need now is the bill from the plumber.

One a different note, this week I watched a 1970s TV documentary about the first English chapter of the Hell's Angels that I was pointed to via Twitter.  It was interesting, in a weird "Withnail and I" way, and the voice-over commentary made it sound like an old Monty Python sketch.  One of the gang had wildly crossed eyes, the result, the commentator explained neutrally, of having "both his eyes knocked out of their sockets in a fight."

The thing that struck me the most, apart from the lack of traffic on the streets, was how young they all looked.  I assume that's because I am getting old.















*She's dead of course.

WaterWorld

Well yesterday was exciting.  Mr WithaY was off out working, and after we'd walked the dog, he headed off by about 9am.  So far so good.

I pottered around in the kitchen for an hour, doing the usual domestic drudgery stuff, but that came to a grinding halt when I realised that we had no water coming out of the taps.  To be specific, there was no hot water coming out of the kitchen tap, and the barest trickle of cold water.  There was no water at all upstairs.

I went over to the petrol station and asked if they still had water.  Yes they did.   I asked our immediate neighbours if they had water.  Yes they did.

Oh good. Just us without, then.

In the course of the conversation with the neighbour, he told me that there was a "huge leak" in the village somewhere, which the people at Wessex Water had been looking for for months.  My heart sank. I telephoned Wessex Water and told them that I had no running water, but the neighbours did. They were very helpful and said that they'd send someone out "soon."  

Sure enough, a short (ish) time later, a large smiley man knocked on the door.  I took him round to the back garden and showed him what I had discovered - namely that the hole in the patio where the main water stop-cock* is sited was completely full of water, and a small spring could be seen in one corner, making a pretty cascade across the garden.

He stripped off his high-vis coat and plunged an arm into the water to turn off the water at the mains.  A few moments later, his hand emerged, clutching the broken stop cock.

"Ah,"  he said.  "That's not supposed to happen."

We agreed that it was unfortunate, standing out in the rain as he tried to massage life back into his arm.  Apparently our cold water is really, really cold.

He sucked his teeth.  I hopped from foot to foot anxiously. Water continued to cascade across the patio into the lawn, making an impromptu bog garden feature.

"Well, the guys are on their way," he told me.  "I'll wait in the van till they arrive."  Off he went.

Some time later, two chaps arrived with a lot of digging equipment, and a small pump.  Things got noisy.  A large hole was dug.  More water was pumped out of the hole and across the garden.  The dog was beside herself with excitement, so I only took her out into the garden when she had her lead on, as I didn't want her to run into the way of the workmen, or, more worryingly, run out of the garden if the gate had been left open.

After a couple of hours, the workmen showed me the water pipe they had extricated.  It looked like a long cylindrical colander, peppered with small holes, one huge hole at the end.   Apparently it must have been leaking for years, which explains why the patio is in such a terrible state at that end of the house.  The good news was that the pipe can be replaced. The bad news is that there's more pipe, probably in a similar terrible state, running up into the house, and anything inside the house is our responsibility, not that of the Wessex Water people.

Arse.

Another prolonged period of drilling, pumping and stop-cock jiggery-pokery** followed, and the workmen told me that the water "ought to be working ok" now.

Nope.  They then tried to rejig the water softener that lives under the kitchen sink in case that was the problem.  Nope.  They sucked their teeth and hummed and hawed.  One of them said "This looks like a pretty new kitchen.  I don't suppose you'll want to have all these cabinets cut out, do you?"

No I fucking won't.

The long afternoon wore on, the rain continued to piss down relentlessly, and I was still without running water.  The workmen rigged up a sort of interim system involving long plastic tubes which at least allowed me to use all the taps in the house, and left, having called the Wessex Water plumber to come and "sort it out for you."

I took the dog for a walk, despite the monsoon that West Wiltshire was currently enjoying.

On our return, the plumber rang and said he'd be there in 15 minutes.  Sure enough, he arrived as promised, and I explained the situation to him.  He looked at the water softener, then at me.  


"I'm really not sure why they called me in, to be honest," he said.  "I don't think the water softener is the problem here."  I agreed, but for the look of the thing we went through a complex rigmarole of turning taps on and off as he fiddled with various stop-cocks under the sink.  After a few minutes of this, we agreed that the water softener was indeed functioning fine, and the real issue was the perforated water pipes under the house.


So, that's how things have been left.  The workmen promised that they'd be back today to finish up, but so far there's no sign of them.  My back garden is still a tangled mess of bright blue pipework, bags of cement, heaps of spoil, and of course all the crap we took out of the garage and stacked on the patio till we could find a home for it.


And of course, it's still pissing down.


In other news, the dog is brilliant.














*Sorry. It's hard to talk about this without using many, many double entendres.
**Told you.

The Trees

There is unrest in the forest.  There is trouble with the trees.

If by "forest" you mean" "our back garden", and by "the trees" you mean "the giant leylandii in our neighbours' garden."

When we bought our house, all those* years ago, we were delighted by the fact that there was a lovely view over the hedge at the end of our garden, across the neighbour's meadow to the river and hills beyond.  It was really very pretty, and when you stood in the bathroom in the mornings and looked out of the window at it, it was a sight to gladden the heart.

When the dairy farm down the road still had their herd of Jersey cows, we could see them grazing on the hills, which was very scenic.  There are often rabbits and squirrels in the meadow, skipping about gaily.  Egrets and herons live on the river, flying in and out in that strange ungainly way, looking like something out of a film set on a distant planet.   One with large predatory bird-like aliens.

Our hedge was flanked on the other side by a cherry tree, and a small cluster of leylandii trees, both of which were in the neighbours' garden.  The cherry tree in particular was very pretty, with blossom in the spring, and plenty of birds coming to visit when the fruit started appearing.

Time passed.

A couple of years after we moved in, the neighbours had a go at the leylandii, trimming them down a bit, taking a big lump off the top.  It was a huge job, I seem to remember they had to get blokes with scaffolding in.  This pruning encouraged it to grow. It grew, and it grew and it GREW.

More time passed.

Last summer we noticed that the bottom end of our garden was becoming a bit dank. Mossy and gloomy.  Also, peculiarly dry.  We realised that the leylandii was both shading the garden from the sun, and shielding it from  the rain. Which was a bit of a bugger, as the fruit bed and the vegetable bed are both at that end of the garden.

Over the winter, that tree seemed to loom ever larger, literally and figuratively.

Possibly because I was spending far more time at home in the hours of daylight, it became a bit of an obsession to me.  Every time I went into the garden to peg out washing, or water the veg, or mooch about admiring the wild flower garden**, I'd see it, looming darkly over the hedge.  I took to standing directly under it and seeing just how much it was overhanging our garden, muttering and grumbling.

Me, not the tree.

All the tree does is grow, grow ever taller, providing a house for the ever-increasing population of idiot Wiltshire pigeons.  It has all but swallowed up the cherry tree, one branch of which is poking out desperately, like the arm of a drowning man waving from the ocean.

The view now consists of this:

Bear in mind that the hedge is about 6 feet tall (yes, it needs cutting, we are waiting for all the birds to finish nesting) which gives some perspective on the height of the tree.

Something had to be done.

After much discussion between Mr WithaY and I, and also with the neighbours on the other side, who hate and loathe the tree with a passion, it was decided that I should write a little note telling the tree-owners that their tree was a nuisance.

That took a fair bit of thought.  It was difficult to put down just how much of a nuisance and encroachment it had become without sounding like a nimby whining busybody, but I think I nailed it.  The note was dropped round to the neighbour, and we waited with bated breath for a reaction. I was preparing all sorts of worst-case scenarios where the local planning office would be involved, and possibly the environmental health authority.  And the Army.  And Godzilla.

As it happened, within 24 hours we had a visit from said tree-owning neighbour.  She looked at it from our garden and was horrified at how big it was, and how much light it blocked.   We discussed possible solutions, and the upshot was that I got a tree surgeon to come round and give us some price quotes on pruning it, or cutting it right down.

Another little note has been written to next door telling them that the tree surgeon's opinion is that the whole thing should come down due to its size and position.  Mr WithaY and I have offered to pay for it to be removed, as we know that things are a bit difficult for the neighbours at the moment.  All we need is their go-ahead, and hopefully by the end of the summer we will have our view, and the sunshine, back.

In other news:  We are getting the garage converted, and the bloke is coming on Thursday to conduct the survey.  The work is due to start at the end of the month.  Exciting.

And in other, other news, I had a job interview last week.  Waaaay back last summer I applied for a job, a post I felt that I was pretty well fitted for, and was rather disappointed not even to get called for interview.  I put it in the "Ah well" file in my head, and moved on.  Last week, there was an email from the people who I had sent my application to.  Was I still available for work, and if so, would I like to come and have a chat with them?

Oh yes indeedy.  So I went in, had a long chat, and am currently waiting to hear back from them about the possibility of a full-time (but temporary) job which would then hopefully lead to a part-time, permanent job. Which would be perfect.

I'll let you know.








*Ten and a half

**Rampant weedy patch in the corner of the garden

The Sock Game

Today I am mostly typing with my hideous, scaly, thorn-embedded, scarred, muddy fingers.  Yes, I have been gardening.

Mr WithaY and I are both on leave from work for a couple of weeks, and despite many conversations about Where Shall We Go For Easter, we are still here at home. 

I have to say, I don't mind at all.  The weather has been gorgeous for the last week and a half, and looks set to continue that way for a few more days, so being at home is no hardship.  This weekend we did a lot of sorting out in the garden, clearing crap (not real crap, metaphorical crap) off the patio.

Things we cleared included:

- Broken garden umbrella, which was lying on its side on the floor, and had been left forgotten about for months and months.  Note: When testing a garden umbrella for broken-ness, try not to stand under it as you open it.  It will invariably be full of dead leaves, mud, litter, woodlice and snails. Top tip.

- Assorted garden detritus, plastic buckets, broken flowerpots, sticks ("for poking the drain with" according to Mr WithaY - too late, sunshine, they are in the green bin,) and blown-in litter that was all tangled up among everything else.

- Huge builders sacks full of old loft flooring material, which we have been meaning to take to the tip for ages.  In fact, we discovered that as it is made of compressed sawdust* and other wood-based goodness, we can smash it up with a spade and then put it all on the bare patch behind the shed to suppress weeds.  Plus it will give the rats somewhere cosy to sleep. 

- The dead camellia that I have finally admitted is dead, and consigned to great compost bin in the sky.  The cold winter did for it.  I moved the other camellia (they're both in tubs) round to the front of the house where it is more sheltered, and where it will hopefully be a bit happier and actually produce some flowers next season. 

With all that lot out of the way, we were inspired to begin the vegetable planting.  Mr WithaY carefully put courgette (2 types) and squash seeds into little pots, then put the pots in the plastic greenhouse thingy.  I planted "mixed salad" seeds in a big tub.  Next month the aubergines, carrots and French beans go in. 

Today I planted six lavender plants in pots and along one border in the front garden, some golden thyme in a different border, and a rosemary plant in a large pot.  I need to get a new bench to go out the front though, the old one - at least 16 years old now - creaks alarmingly when it is sat on, and I have visions of us crashing to the ground in a miasma of tea and bad language one sunny afternoon.

Unfortunately, having been out in the garden so much, I noticed the bastard sparrows.  The bastard sparrows who are nesting in the hedge are using my car as a sort of avian amusement park, sitting on the wing mirror and shitting liberally all down the driver's door.  Sometimes, for a change, they hop down onto the rubber window trim and fight with their own reflections in the wing mirror.  This is clearly alarming and makes them shit themselves.  If they win the fight with themselves, they have a celebratory great big shit.

I tried folding the mirror back, but they still manage to get themselves between it and the car for a good old mirror fight.  And a shit, of course.  Bastards. 

I wouldn't mind so much but we feed them, we have a little bath out there for them, we have nesting boxes all over the place, and how do they repay our kindness?  By covering my car in a thick, copious layer of second-hand birdseed.

I have been washing huge amounts of sparrow crap off my car for three days now, and every time I go out there it is encrusted again.  I might admit defeat and harvest it to sell on eBay. My own Organic Guano business.

Other News:  It was Mr WithaY's birthday at the weekend.

Me:  It's your birthday soon - what would you like as a present?

Mr WithaY:  Oh, something bushcrafty please.

Me:  ....? *thinks* Ohhh fuck...

"Something bushcrafty" could mean almost anything.  An interesting stick?  A pet squirrel?  Snowshoes?  A canoe?  A week in a Youth Hostel in the bleakest corner of the North of Scotland?  A banjo?  I have no clue.

I chickened out and gave him some money. 

Guess what he plans to spend it on, readers?  I bet you won't, not in a million billion years.

He's booked himself onto a bronze axe-head forging course in Wales.

He's very excited about it. 

*sigh*

Anyhoo, in a slightly less mental birthday vein, we went out for dinner with some friends on Saturday night to a fine local eaterie.  We ate and drank like kings** then sat around chatting and drinking coffee.  The owners of the eaterie have a splendid dog - a Rhodesian Ridgeback, to be specific - who came trotting out to say hello.  We all made a huge fuss of her, and she was charming company, greeting everyone and being good-natured and friendly. 

It came time to go, and we stood up, putting on coats and jackets, the lovely dog still milling around, sniffing hands and wagging her tail.  One of our group pulled his jumper on, and was pulling the sleeves up over his hands and up his arms when the dog went mental. 

Mental.

Still wagging her tail, she jumped up and put her paws on his shoulders (she's a big dog) and started mouthing and biting at his hands, still hidden in the sleeves.  She was clearly playing, but it was all a bit sudden and unexpected, and the owner rushed over to grab the dog and pull her away.

"I'm so sorry," she explained.  "My husband plays a game with her where he puts a sock over his hand and they romp about - she loves it!" 

She'd spotted our friend with his hands hidden up his jumper sleeves and thought "Great!  Not only are these nice people making a huge fuss of me, but they also know the sock game!"

Heh.






*If any builders out there know that the stuff is actually impregnated with deadly toxic chemicals, please keep it to yourself. 

**Greedy kings who like steak.  And booze.

Shot in the dark

Busy busy busy.  So.  Bullet points today:

• Fish are off to the Fish Hotel this afternoon, under strict instructions to behave themselves and not disgrace the WithaY name. 
• Ironing mountain is diminishing oh so very slowly.  I did a load of it last night whilst watching the England/USA match.  Not because I like football, but because I wanted to see if it would be any good.  My verdict?  It wasn't. 
• Made two loaves of bread in the bread machine yesterday.  First one was dreadful - uncooked in the middle and heavy as lead.  I threw it in the bin, as unfit even to offer the birds.  The second one wasn't much better, but too warped and freaky looking to take to Father in law WithaY as planned.
• Made "proper" bread this morning, not using bread machine.  Less freaky looking but still not brilliant.  Took it to Father in law WithaY anyway. 
• There is a mole in our back garden. It is making its way around the perimeter of the vegetable bed.  Fucker.
• Neighbour informed me that he saw a large black cat jumping out of Mr WithaY's Landrover window, carelessly left open, after setting off the car alarm whilst sheltering from torrential rain.  That explains the dead mouse I found under the front window the other day.
• Had unexpected and very lovely surprise visit from two of my girlie mates who were on their way home from a week at CenterParcs.  Spent a couple of hours sitting in the back garden drinking tea and catching up on the news.  Am now booked into next June's weekend trip to CenterParcs.  Hurrah. 

Right.  Off to make lunch.

Fish and chips

Today I have been hauling logs about like some sort of serf. A serf with a wheelbarrow and a bad attitude. If I had had a mud-brown sackcloth tunic on, I would have looked like a woodcut from the Fourteenth Century.  Terry Jones would have used my picture in one of his historical programmes, with some hilarious animations to make my head fall off.

Why?  Well, I'll tell you.

A few weeks ago we had the apple tree in the back garden pruned.  It has been reduced by about a third, maybe more, to try and encourage it to grow more healthily.  I hope it works.  The pruning meant that a huge heap of branches were left on the lawn, much to the interest of the birds.  Today was the day we dealt with them.  I loaded up the wheelbarrow and dragged the larger logs to the woodshed*, grumbling fluently the whole time. 

Mr WithaY, meanwhile, was manning the chipper.  This is not, as the name suggests, a machine for turning potatoes into delicious hot chips, to be sprinkled with salt and vinegar.  No.  It is a frankly terrifying machine that you feed with sticks and it spits the resultant woodchips into a suitable container.  It's more of a monster that needs appeasement than a garden tool. 

You feed it with sticks which the machine grabs, sucking them into the whirling Blade of Doom.  It spits chunks back out of the top at high speed, aiming for your eyes.  If it decides to keep all of the stick in the grinding, roaring innards, it jams bits of them in the workings, forcing the user to poke at them with other sticks until they too are minced up.

It's all very unsatisfactory and alarming.  If the whirling, chopping blade grabs the branch while you're still holding onto it, it whips it about in your hand, which is painful and scary. I was harbouring fears of being sucked in and shredded.  Not that I'd fit, of course, but it wasn't an entirely rational fear.  It was like feeding the maelstrom.  With sticks. 

Also, given Mr WithaY's track record, I was yipping with alarm every time he poked the machinery with the Poking Stick.  No wonder I was relegated to the lowly Serf With Wheelbarrow position.

Other news:  Friday night we were in the pub, chatting to some mates about films we've watched recently.  Mr WithaY and I were talking about "In Bruges", which we watched before Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed.

"Oh, I saw that!" said a friend.  She went on to tell us that when she watched it she was struck by the incredible versatility of the lead actor, especially his convincing Irish accent.  She said it was some considerable time before she realised that Colin Farrell was the man in question, not, as she had at first thought, Will Ferrell.

"I saw him in "Elf" the night before, and was amazed how different he looked!" she told us.  Bless.

Also, we have bought some more fish.  Ten little neon tetra, which just light up the tank beautifully.  No more fatalities since the hideous outbreak of shrimp-eating, which is encouraging.  The fish shop we go to also has a garden centre with lots of statuary on sale.  I was most taken by a giant Chinese stylee stone lion.  I have no idea how much it is** but I already know where I will put it if I do ever buy it.

Maybe later in the year, when things are more organised out there.



*Where I didn't see Something Nasty, thankfully
**I'm guessing A Lot

Wildlife

Ahhh, winter.  The time when all of Nature seems to slow down and sleep for the colder months.  The time when even the little birds in the trees seem sleepy and lazy.  When the plants in the garden furl up and die rest.  Even the light is washed out and tired, pale and disinterested. 

The only exception to this bucolic placidity would appear the be the bastard rats in our garden.  They are getting extra-specially busy.  Perhaps they are swept up in the excitement of the pre-Christmas rush.

I bet they have made"to do" lists:

1)  Run out from under the shed and frisk round the garden (Note: only do this after Mr WithaY's Landrover has left the drive.)
2)  Climb into apple tree and gnaw on remaining apples. 
3)  Remember to glare into the kitchen window while doing this.
4)  Avoid the rat traps.  Especially the one in the top of the compost bin.
5)  Continue with Project S.
6)  Ignore the bread spread with peanut butter outside the shed.  It's another trap. 
7)  Buy kevlar vests.
8)  Get in touch with the mole and remind him that he is spending the rest of Winter with us.
9)  Have a word with the robin about the meaning of the word "Sharing".

I have broken their code.  I know what Project S is all about.  It's about gnawing a hole in the floor of the shed from underneath so they can get in there and play with all our stuff.  I fully anticipate seeing a team of rats riding my bicycle* round the garden before Spring. 

The garden, incidentally, which is being gradually converted from a moss-infested dank wilderness to a tidy, fertile home for all manner of fruits and flowers.  I planted raspberry canes the other weekend, before I went down with the Black Lung.  I also planted up the big stone trough with Spring bulbs, so with any luck we will have tulips, irises, crocuses, hyacinths and narcissi.  Assuming the resident wildlife doesn't start using the place as a snack bar, of course. 

I saw a squirrel in the apple tree again, he was tucking into the peanut feeder we hung there for the birds.  He stopped stealing nuts for long enough to stick two fingers up at me, then went back to his thieving.  Mr WithaY recently saw a rat in there too, calmly eating one of the apples without a care in the world. 

Earlier today I saw a woodpecker on the same feeder, tucking into the nuts.  We've also had blue tits, coal tits, great tits, wrens, sparrows, jackdaws, greenfinches, pigeons, collared doves, starlings and a crow.  Oh, and the scary robin.  He is a terror.  All the other birds seems to be afraid of him, and I can see why.

Other news:  I am on the mend.  Hurrah.  I am still coughing like a pauper from a Victorian workhouse, but the pain in my chest has lessened and I don't think I have a temperature any more. 





*And, to be honest, that would be the first time it has been ridden in 8 years.  Anyone want to buy it?

Damp

So let's talk about the weather, shall we? It's, what, August now? When did we last have more than 4 consecutive hours of fine weather? Late June, was it? Come on...sort it out, weather gods.

Having said that, yesterday was reasonably dry in the morning, so we were able to get out in the garden. To be fair, we are always able to get out in the garden, it's not like the back door is bricked up or anything. We choose not to use it, much of the time, and prefer to spend our time gazing mournfully through the rain-spattered windows, making tea and bitching about the weather.

Well, we are British, after all.

But Sunday. Gardening. Yes.

The back hedge desperately needed cutting. It was looking like one of those gap year students who spends 3 months hitching round Australia and never quite masters hair management...all weird spikes and bulges and long floppity bits. Between the two of us, using the hedge trimmer, the stepladder and two extension cables we managed to get the majority of the hedge sorted. Sadly, however, there is one corner that was justout of reach, and remains defiantly sticky-uppy. We'll have to ask if we can get at if from next door's garden, if it stops raining for long enough.

Once the fun bit was over, the slash and burn element, we had the boring tiresome tidying up to do. This was enlivened by Mr WithaY dragging a huge tarpaulin out of the garage and laying it on the lawn, rather like someone about to do an impressive magic trick involving Folding.

Then the pair of us, using shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction*, dragged all the hedge cuttings onto it. We rolled the tarpaulin up like a giant swiss roll, and took turns laying on it to squash the cuttings down.

Eventually it was a manageable size, and Mr WithaY deployed his trusty para cord to tie it all together. I couldn't decide if it looked like the corpse of an elephant seal being taken for discreet disposal, or the world's worst Christmas gift ever.

We lugged it to the tip and dumped it, pretending we were Mafia hitmen.

A speedy trip to Homebase after that, where we bought a gazebo tent thing for when we have people over and it rains, as it has done every weekend for about 2 months. While we were there, I got some funky solar lights on sticks to put in the flower beds, and a set of fairy-type lights on a net to put in a tree or in the gazebo tent thing, also solar powered.

Every moth in Wiltshire will turn up, I'm sure.



*Thanks Arlo

Kneady

This week has been odd.

Monday I went up to London to the office, and that was fine, no problem. Saw the counsellor at lunchtime, which was helpful. The journeys to and from were fine, no major drama or incident, thankfully. I walked both ways to and from Waterloo, which felt like an achievement, and the weather was reasonable.

Fucking tourists though. Bastards. Why do they walk in long strung-out groups, all holding hands and blocking the pavement? It's like being a fish in the middle of a fleet of ring-netting fishermen.

On Tuesday morning I decided to work at home, as I wanted to make some important non-work-related calls that I didn't want the rest of the office overhearing. By lunchtime I had decided to cancel attempting to get any work done, and simply take the day as leave, then decided to take Wednesday as well, as there were a lot of things relating to the recent shitstorm from Hades to try and sort out.

Work, fortunately, have been, and continue to be, brilliantly supportive and understanding.

I think as a result of having to make all the phone calls, I had a bit of a delayed shock reaction, involving tears and vomiting (nice!) but thankfully once that passed I felt better.

Anyhoo, I decided to take the rest of the week off work, and try and get Hades shitstorm stuff sorted. Which I did, to some extent.

The cleaning team came back on Friday, and the house is starting to look really nice. I even did some more of the ironing, which felt like much less of a chore as the rest of the cleaning was already done.

Yesterday we spent a large chunk of the morning in the garden, before the heavens opened. Mr WithaY cut the front hedge, which looks much tidier now, and even managed to mow the lawns without lopping any appendages off. I pulled up an entire wheelie bin full of weeds from the front flower bed, which was hugely satisfying.

Mr WithaY also cut down the spiky bastard bush by the dog/log shed in the back garden, making the whole place look and feel much bigger. I want to plant some climbing roses somewhere in that area, but will have a think about how the place will look first. I don't want to rush into anything and then realise it was the wrong decision.

It's a shame the weather is so shite again today, I wanted to cut the back hedge too, but it's too wet and windy right now.

Might go and make some bread, I feel the need to knead.

Drive

Continuing the green theme, today we went down to Father in Law WithaY's house to do a bit of clearing up and so on. The drive was waist high in weeds as we drove up, so we decided to try and tidy up a bit.

It's funny how much longer a drive appears when you are weeding it by hand, than when you drive up it.

Mock The Leek

Ah the joys of not sleeping. So, rather than going and doing something useful like...oh, I don't know...the ironing maybe, I am posting photos of Mystery Vegetables for you to identify for me.

We could have a competition maybe?

Name That Green. Now That's What I Call Greenery. Green Or No Green. I have a great format in my head, if only I could come up with a great title.

I might need to call the BBC with my ideas tomorrow.

Anyhoo. Picture 1, an arty leaf shot:



Picture 2, displaying the rhubarb-like stems:



Picture 3. Admire the mighty WithaY vegetable patch! Look upon our works of cultivation and despair, humanity!



The basil's still not dead, which I think is rather impressive.

Also, due to popular demand* I am posting up the photos of the Huge Fire we witnessed the other week.

Scene 1 was taken from inside the coffee shop, Scene 2 was taken from the steps outside the coffee shop. I was all set to run much closer and take Scene 3, but then my brain managed to finally make itself heard and stopped me from endangering my life.





Other news: I am waiting expectantly for our new cleaning team to turn up. I have tidied up specially. When the lady from the agency came round to assess the house the other week, she said "Oh good - they like having to do houses with a bit of dust!"

I was mortified.

Also, am officially back at work today, although I suspect that the work will mostly consist of reassembling my laptop and trying to get back onto the work intranet and email system. I am going up to London on Monday which will be a bit of a big step, but hopefully it will be ok.

Aha. Domestic assistance has arrived. Marvellous. I'll go and put the kettle on.


Bah. Just noticed that this post has the time I started it at the bottom, ie late last night, rather than the time I actully posted it, ie at about 0900 today. If I were more technically competent (and could be arsed) I'd amend it, but sadly I will have to pretend I meant to do it this way.

Yes, I am a time traveller. I hope you're impressed.


*Youngest Sis was grumbling that she hadn't seen them.

Fire in the sky

I mentioned about taking pictures in London the other day.

Remember? Yeah you do.

Anyway. Look...

Westminster Abbey looking rather glorious in the afternoon sunshine.



Parliament Square, with riot police:



And some shots of the inside of the Royal Society, where they had the grandest ceilings ever.



I'm not kidding.



And they had some incredible techno firewood.



Other news: Went to our friend's memorial on Saturday evening. It was very well-attended, many friends and family were there, as well as a big crowd of people from the village.

Right at the end of the evening one of our aeronautical neighbours sent up a procession of large square lantern balloon things, about 5 feet high (or so it looked from where I was) with a fire basket underneath. They drifted up and off in a long curving line towards Shaftesbury, where they hung in the air for ages, the lights getting smaller and smaller before vanishing completely.

It was very beautiful and very fitting.

What else? Oh, Mr WithaY's hand is causing a little concern. He went back to the local hospital this morning to get them to take a look, but they were reassuring and seem to think everything is ok.

We did a little bit of gardening yesterday, not much, just pulled out some of the bigger weeds (the ones that were as tall as me), then sat on a bench out the back and discussed Plans For The Garden. We are remarkably good at Plans. We Planned for quite some time, then decided we were too poor/lazy/lacking in fingers to do any serious gardening for a while.

The big plan for tomorrow is that I am going to get my hair cut in Salisbury, as it is 3 months since the last fab styling experience at Toni and Guy's. And then we are going to the pictures to see Night at the Museum 2. Well, the first one was a laugh. And this one has Christopher Guest in it! Hurrah! How can it not be great?

Also, I made soup. Mushroom, with loads of garlic. Was lovely.

Doing It Ourselves

It's been a big day in the WithaY household. Possibly one of those days that everyone remembers in years to come as The Big Day, in capital letters.

We own our very own proper lawnmower. Not a strimmer. Not a Flymo. Not an electric one. It's a proper petrol-driven, grown-up, lean, mean grasscutting machine.

As soon as we got back from the DIY shop, Mr WithaY went out and cut the front and back lawns, then stood looking out of the windows in all parts of the house to admire his handiwork. Every now and again he would sigh contentedly and say "Have you looked at the lawns yet?" in case I had missed the beauty that was The Cut Grass.

I tried to join in by pulling up some weeds, but got bored and left the two of them alone together, roaring round the garden in a mist of grass cuttings and fumes.

We also bought shitloads of paint to decorate our hall and stairs. We decorated them in a bit of a hurry when we first moved in, because it was all so depressing. The walls were covered with what had once been rather nice paper, but over the 30 years it had been up, it had got discoloured and filthy. The paintwork was pale brown from years of heavy smoking in the house, and everything was slightly sticky.

So, we stripped the walls, scrubbed the paintwork, which was actually white (mostly), put up thick lining paper and slapped on a couple of coats of pale pink emulsion. Worked a treat, and really warmed up the place.

Eight years on, the rest of the house has been decorated to a much higher standard, usually by professionals, and the hall and stairs now look, frankly, shit.

There is now a collection of tins of paint, new brushes and rollers waiting to be deployed. The plan was that Mr WithaY and I would do it* over Easter.

However, today, during the course of a visit to Father-in-Law WithaY, Mr WithaY mentioned ever-so-casually that he was going fishing all day on Friday. Oh, and diving all day on Sunday. And he is away for work on Thursday evening.

Hmmm.

So, looks like I will be getting on with the decorating on my own, which is a bit of a shame, because I am of the "fuck it, near enough" school of decorating, and Mr WithaY belongs to the "micro-millimetre perfect" school of decorating.





*fnar

Progress and plans

Things are improving. I am much relieved. Not entirely coincidentally, my back is on the mend, although I still walk like Igor, making distressed gorilla noises.

I can't get my work laptop to connect up, so am going to take this week as leave. My personal laptop is ok, though, so I can hook up to do stuff like this, and check my email, and look at the BBC website. All most useful.

Middle Sister has come back down, so we are planning to do some more work in Mum's garden tomorrow if it's a nice day. Assuming I can actually bend over and stand up again. It might even get me in the mood to sort out my own garden when I get home.

I am desperate to get the patio replaced. I need to redesign the garden layout, bearing in mind we have several immoveable objects (oil tank, gas cylinders, septic tank, sheds) that we will have to work around, and then find the money to get it done.

I want to have a new drive, rear patio, front patio and raised beds in the back garden with places to sit and have a glass of wine if we ever get another decent summer. All the hard standing around the house is shot to bits, and it's not worth trying to fix it. It all needs to be ripped up, the groundwork sorted out, and then everything replaced. I quite fancy a mixture of stone, gravel and cobblestones. But we will see what fits and how much it all costs.

Plus we need to comply with the new regulations on groundwater and drainage, so we don't flood the entire west of England whenever it rains. So. Plans for the summer.

I also want to plant some fruit bushes, raspberries and redcurrants, maybe some gooseberries. However, in reality I will probably just spend the summer watching the rain and wondering where the mole will make his next appearance.

Mr WithaY has taken to addressing the mole as if they are both World War One fighter pilots. "So, Mr Mole, the day is yours. This time. We shall meet again, my brave adversary."

If it wasn't so funny it would alarm me.

Snail

The snow is turning to a nice mixture of hail and snow, I shall call it Snail.

I took some photos, as did everyone else in the UK. Look:


Our bin, last night. I spoil my readers.


Look! Footprints vanishing into the darkness! It's almost as if a big bloke walked into the garden and was then made to stay there while his over-excited wife took a picture.


A daylight shot of Mr WithaY's truck, please note the proliferation of overhead lines. Most artistic.


The back garden in daylight, full of grumpy cold blackbirds and scary robins. We have since refilled the bird feeders and put an apple out for them. If you don't placate them, the robin god comes in the night and pulls out all your feathers.

Cheese fiasco

Can't believe it's been so long since my last post. Sorry, if you were impatiently checking back on an hourly basis for the next thrilling update, and all that. I have no real reason for this slackerliness, other than a dull and tiresome lack of inspiration. Some days it doesn't stop me and I cheerfully witter on about anything that happens to scamper through my brain, but for some reason that facility deserted me.

Until now, obviously.

Maybe it's all the gravitas and responsibility of my new job starting to congeal in my soul. Maybe in 6 months time I will have grown my own pinstripe carapace and be unable to find other people falling down holes funny any more.

I hope not.

So. The big disappointment of the weekend was the Frome Cheese Show. We've had it in the WithaY diary for months, planning our annual Big Day Out to admire the animals, vegetables and Crafts. Oh, the Crafts. I had new batteries in the camera and everything.

Following a slightly more cider-centric night at the pub on Friday than we had planned, we were up a bit late, and didn't set off for the Show till about 11am. Still, it was a nice day, and we headed off cheerfully in Mr WithaY's Landrover, reasoning that it wasn't far to go, and it was likely to be a bit muddy. All went well.

Until, that is, we got onto the main road to Frome, which was nose to tail with almost stationary traffic. We inched along till we got to the next junction, and the long straight road towards the showground was nose to tail as far as the eye could see.

We looked at the queue, then at each other, and made a team decision to bale out, do a U turn and head for the hills. Driving back the way we had just come, we could see the traffic backing up for bloody miles. Nightmare.

Once home, as were were already in our "Walking in the Mud" clothes we did a couple of hours of gardening, cutting back about a hundredweight of lavendar. We were knackered but very relaxed by the time we'd finished.

The mole's still out there. We think we've seen the last of him, then hey presto, bloody miles of tunnels and molehills appear. It's all most dispiriting.

It may be coincidence, but all the roses are doing really well for the first time all year. I think they might enjoy having their roots disturbed. Hey, who wouldn't.

Still waiting for the glorious Village Fete prize, by the way. *sigh*

Rain

The rain today has been torrential and scary. In about 30 minutes at lunchtime we saw the garden develop several new water features. At one point I thought the shed might be flooded.



Check out all the apples on the tree. With any luck we'll be able to harvest a fair few later in the year.

In case you are wondering, the cage in the corner is not for Mr WithaY. Our dog used to stay there when we were out. He hated it.



Other news: My jam making went well. ALthough I think I may have made a couple of pounds of strawberry toffee as well as jam. Tastes nice though.

Invaders

We have been invaded! By moles! Seriously.

The front garden now has a tussocky, lumpy, generally dug-up look to bits of it that has nothing to do with me or Mr WithaY. As I was waving a fond farewell to my gorgeous guitar teacher last night, Mr WithaY looked out of the front door and exclaimed "What the bloody hell is all that?"

As if I knew. That was the area of lawn under my Vibernum bush. Tree. Shrub. Whatever.

The grass no longer looked like a 500 year old croquet lawn*, but like the aftermath of a vigorous game of rugby, followed by a polo match, followed by a tug-of-war contest.

Mr WithaY took the appropriate action, as he is a man of rare skill and resource...running over the lawn, stamping all the tussocks flat with his be-slippered feet, cursing and swearing at the moles. He managed to get completely covered in bright green tree slime (from the Vibernum) and get his nice fleecy slippers all wet and muddy.

As of press time, the mole tussocks are all back as they were.

I will keep you informed.


*In my head, my garden looks like the one at some glorious stately home.

Inna gadda

I ache.

We were doing some gardening yesterday, what with it being a nice day and all. We dug and weeded and pruned and hacked and hewed and trowelled and wheelbarrowed. And the garden still looks shite.

The green wheelie bin is full to overflowing with aquiliegia (sp?) which grow like weeds all over the garden. I dug up Wiltshire's annual quota of dandelions. There were nettles hiding in the middle of the geraniums which I managed to pull out and sting myself with, despite gloves. We hauled away a ton of borage, which is horribly invasive and spiky.

Mr WithaY put some borage flowers in the cool refreshing Pimms we had later on as a reward so they aren't all bad.

Weeding the rose bed is like clipping the dog's claws. You know it's for the best but you still get horribly scratched.

Other news: We had planned to head off to the Bath and West Show on Saturday, but the weather forecast was dire, and according to the local radio the showground had been flooded out on Thursday, so we decided not to bother. Apparently an inch of rain fell in about 2 hours on Thursday afternoon there.

Had some friends over for a very relaxed spag bol and booze supper in the evening, and we all flumped on the sofas to watch the St Trinian's dvd afterwards. Most entertaining. Mr Withay is in love with the Head Girl. She is mighty foxy.

I have written out the cheque to pay my parking fine, but am still too annoyed to actually post it. I need to within 28 days or I get sent to prison for the rest of my life, I think. I'll check the small print on the ticket again.

Oh, you'll be pleased to know that my feet are peeling from the sunburn. Most attractive. I look like a dragon fruit.