I slept like a log last night, but woke with serious
aching. What was that all about? I made toast and had a look at the Internet.
There was an interesting post on one of the pond-related
Facebook pages I follow. Most people who make raised ponds in their gardens use
either bricks or thick heavy wooden sleepers to do so. Whatever you make a
raised pond out of has to be substantial; there’s a lot of heavy water to hold
in place. Some idiot had posted photos of his attempt. He’d nailed a few
pallets together, nailed some chip board to the pallets, and wondered why
everyone was being critical. He claimed he couldn’t afford expensive materials
so he’d made so with what he could scavenge. It was quite clear that the weight
of any water inside would make the thing burst open, but he wouldn’t be told.
I don’t want to be heartless, but if I’ve learned one thing
from eighteen years of having a garden pond, it’s that if you want more than a
huge puddle of stagnant water, it ain’t cheap.
I loaded the dogs into the car and we set off to the woods.
As we drove there was a lot of talk on the radio about the D-Day anniversary
events that are going on. However I was amazed by an interview with some German
woman who was thankful for the D-Day landings as she felt that the whole point
of D-Day was so that the allied forces could save Germany from the communists.
That’s not the history I was taught.
And there was talk about women athletes being most athletic
during their “time of the month”. I say “talk”; there was a lot
of “um – yeah – well – um”. Surely the time has come to pre-record all
radio interviews and weed out those who simply cannot do an interview.
We got to the woods and had a mostly good walk. Mostly. As
we came to the end of our walk so we turned a corner and found an elderly woman
with two large Alsatian-type dogs who flew at my dogs. Treacle cowered behind
me; Moorgan and Bailey ran off each being chased by one of her dogs. Bailey
soon pulled away from the dog chasing her, but Morgan made the mistake of
turning to come back to me. Just as he nearly got to me so the huge
Alsatian-type dog chasing him pounced and pinned him down. I glared at the elderly
woman who was just watching this happen. Seeing she clearly had no intention of
doing anything I brandished our metal dog- water bottle like a club and turned
to her dog. The woman then shrieked like a banshee, waddled over and tried to
pull her dog off of Morgan. In all the commotion Morgan escaped and joined
Treacle behind me.
As the old woman clung to one of her dogs with both hands (with
a rather pathetic expression on her face) I looked up the path. There was a
bit of a stand-off happening. Bailey was fifty yards up the path clearly
wanting to come back to me, but the old woman’s other dog was blocking her way.
Both dogs were looking at me. I glared at the old woman again, and bellowed up
the path telling Bailey to come to me, and that if the other dog bothered her I
would break it’s f…ing neck. Bailey came straight to me, and the other dog
really did stand there looking sheepish.
The old woman then bustled off without any attempt at
apology.
We got home just as the garden waste bin was being emptied
by the bin men. I watched the bin go onto the bin lorry, it was lifted upside
down, put back again, and the bin men put it back by our house.
When I went to put the bin away it was still half-full.
I hung out the washing and made a cuppa and phoned the
council to tell them their bin-emptying device had a malfunction, then spent
half an hour on the phone to the hospital. My nose is nowhere near as
polyped-up as it used to be. Do I really need surgery? I don’t think so. But
would anyone at the hospital answer the phone?
I left a message with the complaints people, and cracked on
in the garden. Having cleared a space behind the pond for my new bog filter
yesterday I spent a little while laying the slabs for it. As I lifted a heavy
slab there was an awkward incident. I didn’t quite have my hand as far
underneath as I might have done. I gave the thing far too much effort and my
left middle finger gave a resounding crack and really hurt. I looked at it; it
didn’t look right. On the spur of the moment I grabbed the end and gave it a
yank. That really hurt as well, but afterwards it looked far more like a finger
should look. Had I dislocated it and then got it back into place? I hesitate to
say that I had, but it was certainly better after I’d yanked it than before.
Seeing my hand was working (after a fashion) I then
re-potted my saxifrage which will be used to disguise the container the bog
filter will go in. As I re-potted I caught Bailey in the planter she’d dug in
yesterday. She was seriously digging again, and she got the worst telling-off
she’s ever had (so far). She then spent much of the rest of the day in
her basket sulking. Sulking so much that Treacle kept going to see if she was
OK. Dogs really do sulk.
The hospital’s complaints people phoned, They gave me a
number for the ENT secretary. I phoned the number and an automated system told
me that the number had not been recognized.
I phoned the complaints people again, then put the bog
filter’s container in place and put in the four bags of cobblestones I’d got
yesterday. Each stone got washed before going in; they were rather dusty and
the whole point of a bog filter is to clean the water. Starting off with a whole
load of muck would be rather counterproductive.
After a couple of hours the hospital’s complaints people
phoned me back and gave me another phone number to try. I left a message on
that number, came in and spent a couple of hours ironing before going back into
the garden. Once it is established the bog filter will look fine (I hope)
but at the moment it looks a bit iffy. I fiddled about landscaping… “Landscaping”
is posh for lugging heavy boulders about the garden until they all look pretty.
I’m now at the stage where all I need is the plants for the
filter and I can plumb it in. I thought about going to the garden centre to get
some, but decided against it. My plan for today had been just to lay the slabs
and re-pot the saxifrage. I got far more than that done. Just lately I’ve been
doing too much in the garden in one go and suffering afterwards so I stopped.
“er indoors TM” came home with kebab
and we scoffed it whilst watching the telly. Some days in my life are rather
dull. Others not so. I’m going to work tomorrow for a rest.
My finger really hurts, and Bailey still has the hump with
me…
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