I was up rather later than usual today,
but today was a rostered day off. I sparked up my lap-top and peered into the
Internet. With nothing of note in cyberspace and a good weather forecast I
messaged "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" to see if Sam
fancied helping fix the broken fence post. There was no reply, so I made a
start and hoped I’d get a reply later. Last Friday I mentioned that
nice-next-door had taken their shed down, and that one of the fence posts was
only standing because it had been wedged between that shed and the pot of my
monkey-puzzle tree. With little else to do and supposedly good weather I
thought I’d sort the fence (again).
I managed to move the monkey-puzzle
tree’s pot and got the fence panels down, the membranes and gravel pulled back,
and I started digging. Whoever had put the old fence post in had embedded it in
concrete. Which is all very well until the post rots. When that happens you
have little choice but to dig the concrete out. I’d got quite a bit of the
concrete exposed when Sam arrived. He got stuck in and I suddenly realised we
were missing a vital ingredient for replacing the fence post. We hadn’t actually
got a replacement fence post.
I popped to B&Q.
I got rather annoyed in B&Q; I was
using the self-service till when some interfering busybody member of staff
shoved me out of the way and did all the self-service till stuff for me (as though I was thick). Had I not been
in something of a rush I would have told her to stick it, and gone elsewhere.
But time was pushing.
I came home to find Sam had got the
concrete core out on his own. I was impressed. Mind you those things are heavy;
that’s one of the reasons I need an assistant. It didn’t take long to get the
new post in place and one of the panels in with it. We left the other panel out
for a bit. Nice-next-door are doing their garden too and they said that they
don’t want their shingle. They said I could have it, so I used the hole in the
fence as a gate and loaded up every spare bucket I had with their shingle
whilst Sam compressed the soil round the new fence post (and retrieved Treacle from nice-next-door’s garden a few times too).
With the last fence panel back in place
Sam had to get away. I then sorted out the gravel and membranes around the new
post and thought it might be lunch time. I got myself a sandwich and slept
through an episode of “BattleStar
Galactica”.
I then had a look at the shingle I’d
liberated from nice-next-door. I thought about just bunging it round the bare
patches near the pond, but there was some soil in with it. The shingle needed
to be washed.
Have you ever washed shingle?
I can only describe the mess I made as
akin to the mess the fruits of my loin made twenty-five years ago when playing
mud pies. I got three small bucketfuls of stones washed then realised where I
had gone wrong. I needed to be using a large flower pot (with holes in the bottom) and the pressure washer.
I looked at the pressure washer and
thought “sod that”, got the washing
in, and took the dogs for a walk round the park.
As we walked we saw an unfortunate lad
who looked just like “Mr Logic” from Viz magazine, and we met Bernie. I’d not
seen him for ages; it was good to have a chat as we walked round the park
together.
Just as Bernie and I parted and went our
different ways so the rain started. I was rather wet by the time I got home.
I took the rain to be divine
intervention; a sign from on-high not to continue with the gardening. So
instead I had a look at the household accounts. I wouldn’t say I was skint, but
I could do with making a few economies. I’m currently spending thirty-eight
quid a month on Sky TV. Apart from “Game
of Thrones” I wonder what else I would miss with if I replace the SkyPlus
box with a Freeview box and an Amazon Firestick.
"er indoors TM" took the puppy
to puppy class, and I went to the Tuesday gathering of the clans. We started
off playing with Chris’s new wi-fi-enabled doorbell, then tried to confuse the
Amazon Alexa before watching “Gotham”.
Bernie joined us this evening. It was
just like old times…
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