14 March 2010 (Sunday) - Busying About

I awoke to find a Sunday morning which wasn’t either pouring with rain or shivering in sub-zero temperatures, so after a quick bit of brekky I made a start on the beginning of the year jobs in the garden. First of all to sweep round the yard to gather up all the dead leaves, the discarded fag ends and all the general tat. I got three dustbin bags full of that, and then the lawn had its first mowing of the year.

I noticed that the fence between our garden and next door is seriously rotting away where he’s piled soil up against the fence on his side. I took advice, and it would seem I need gravel boards. Gravel boards are lumps of wood I can nail to the fence to bodge it up for a few more years. So I went shopping for some. To B&Q, Wickes, Homebase and the local WyeVale. All of whom had the things (at various prices), but they all had six inch ones. I had a vague idea I might need bigger than that, so I gave up and came home to check. I was right – I need eight inches or more (oo-er!). I shall try Jewson’s in the morning.


Whilst ‘er indoors TM mended the broken toilet, I mucked out the fish pond filter. Oh, how it stank. And despite a good scrub, I decided that the filter medium was past its best, so I set off on another mission to get more. World of Water is usually a good place for anything pond-related. However today they were rather busy, and I was lumbered with the trainee, who wasn’t much good (bless him). I got my filter pads, but he knew nothing about flocculants. So I went to Swallow aquatics, who were similarly ignorant on the subject of flocculation.

A quick voom round Tesco’s for the shopping (I’d been given a list) and then home again. I reassembled the pond filter, turned it on, and water flooded out of the lid before blowing a fuse. There’s a glass tube in which the fluorescent bulb sits. This glass tube had broken over the winter. I hope I can replace that tube – a whole new filter unit costs over one hundred and fifty quid. I’ll go back to World of Water in the morning as well.


Meanwhile I joined another group on Facebook. This is something I’ve been doing for years – I can remember doing it at cub camp in 1997. I wonder if we might start a craze here…


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