I woke to find “er indoors TM” sleeping
at the bottom of the bed. Apparently she too had had problems claiming bed
space from sleeping dogs. It’s unlike her to take any lip from the pups, though.
I got up, put a load of washing on, made toast and had a
look at the Internet. I had two more friend
requests from rather dubious young ladies. The first one didn’t say
anything at all about herself on her profile. I expect she was letting her
chest do the taking. From a purely objective point of view, she had a rather
impressive chest, If I had one like that I too would brandish it with similar
wanton abandon.
From a chest perspective the second one didn’t come close,
and (to be fair to her) she wasn’t trying to compete. However she had a
whip so she meant business. She was also wearing waders. My father had a pair
that he used when he went shrimping.
I sent out some birthday wishes, and then sighed. Someone
had posted a photo from a bookshop in Hastings. A book I once had (in the
mid 1970s) was up for sale for a hundred and fifty quid. There were quite a
few people posting “how much!!!” but I had a look on eBay and on
collector’s sites. It is ironic to think that something I once had and chucked
out is now worth a small fortune.
Also in Hastings (well, a Hastings-related Facebook
group) were photos of the Memorial. If you’ve ever driven through Hastings
“the Memorial” is the pedestrian area with all the traffic lights where
up until 1970 there was a memorial to Prince Albert. It was demolished in 1970
after a fire. One or two locals were demanding the demolition of the pedestrian
area and the re-building of the Memorial. Hastings-based Facebook groups are
full of spur of the moment complaints about the local council coming from
people who wouldn’t dream of getting off their arse to do anything themselves.
We got ourselves and the dogs organized and drove out to Badlesmere
where we met Karl and Tracey, and wandered round “er indoors TM”
series of geocaches. She sorted out any issues; I took
a few photos. And with walk walked we had a rather good pub dinner and I
slept all the way home.
Bearing in mind the weather forecast for tomorrow wasn’t
overly good, I got busy in the garden. First of all I ran out the hose pipe,
set up the fish pond filter cleaning arrangement and scrubbed out the two
filters that I took out on Wednesday.
I then buried the cable for the new filter under a paving
slab, and landscaped a rockery behind the pond’s splash pool..
And then I dismantled the cascade I built last
August Bank Holiday.
With jobs done I looked at the pond and had a little think
and reviewed the situation with the pond. A year ago I had a rather huge filter
box that wasn’t really cleaning the water, looked awful and was far too heavy
for me to clean out without knacking my back. So over last summer I replaced it
with two smaller filter boxes. That was over three hundred quid on something which
bunged up with fish poo really quickly. looked even worse than that which it
had replaced, and didn’t clean the water either. So I got a load of paving
slabs and landscaping to hide the new boxes and built a cascade. Four hundred
quid on something which looked frankly dreadful and leaked.
The filter I installed last Wednesday (together with the
cleaning hoses) was the two hundred quid I should have spent in the first
place.
I’ve now got the pond clear, which was the object of the exercise.
The area above the splash pool is far from perfect, but is a vast improvement
on what it was. I can tinker with that over the next few weeks. It needs more
big rocks, but at a fiver a throw I might wait for a while. Especially as I have
effectively wasted seven hundred quid on that pond over the last year.
Now that the old filters are scrubbed out I really need to
look at selling them (if I can).
If an of my loyal readers have got any rocks they don’t
want…
I really ache now… rather than taking my time, this
afternoon I did everything on my list for tomorrow. I really should slow down
when it comes to shifting heavy rocks about.
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