I slept for eight hours last night which was something of a
result. I got up five minutes before “er indoors TM”, put
some washing into the machine, made toast and had a look at the Internet. Some
chap had posted pictures of his garden pond on the Garden Ponds UK Facebook
page. He’d devised a method of controlling the algae by filtering the water
through pipe insulation and duvet covers. Whilst it was an effective way of
keeping the pond clear, it looked awful. Some keyboard warrior had suggested
throwing in a supermarket trolley to complete the look… the chap had a point,
but really hadn’t needed to say anything. I suspect he just made the nasty
comment to provoke a reaction – and he got one.
I went to have a quick Munz from the sofa and my phone told
me that from my recent Munzee activity I’d earned fifty Zeds. That’s about
thirty pence to spend on in-game stuff. Not a massive amount, but better than a
kick up the chuff, eh?
“er indoors TM” gave the dogs their
brekkie: I’d rather Morgan ate his brekkie than the bird poo he’s taken to
scoffing. And with everyone fed I took the dogs to the woods for a little walk.
As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the House of
Commons is talking about what actions they are going to take against Boris
Johnson today. Being sick of hearing about him I turned off the radio and sang
along to “Ivor Biggun” songs for the nine minutes it takes to get to
Orlestone.
We had a good walk, but the bottom of the woods were rather
muddy. Over the winter months we don’t go to Orlestone as it is too muddy, and
one day of rain had turned the bottom of the woods to a swamp.
I came home and had a little blast round the front garden
with the “Bionic Burner”, then as I was hanging out laundry I had a
stroke of genius. I pulled out my phone and booked a slot at the tip for half
an hour later. I then spent the intervening half-hour getting much of the
rubbish out of the shed and into the car. As I loaded nice-next-door
waved out of the window, so I took some odds and ends of hers too.
I stopped off at Matalan on the way to the tip and got a
job lot of T-shirts. Since I was last there they’ve taken to having someone on
the checkout. Only one person, but that was better than the last time I was
there. They could have had more on the tills had four members of staff not been
gossiping about how smelly the beach had been at the weekend.
There were an equal number of staff gossiping at the tip
too. With a myriad of receptacles of every sort of rubbish known to humanity
you need a PhD in recycling to navigate your way round the place. But seeing
how they were all too busy chatting to be bothered with the likes of me, I took
pot luck and bunged my tat where I thought it was supposed to go and hoped for
the best.
I got some floating plant pots from Bybrook Barn, had a
quick shop in Sainsburys then came home where “er indoors TM”
was rather pleased to scoff the apple & cream turnovers I’d fetched home
for lunch.
With lunch scoffed I then carried on. More laundry onto the
line, then I launched my watercress. Having been looking all over the Internet
for advice on keeping a pond clear, time and again I see the same advice –
chuck in some watercress. So many people claim they bung in a bag of
supermarket watercress and it clears the water, grows like a thing possessed,
and if it overflows the thing it is in, the fish yum it up.
So I stuck a bagful of watercress into a floating plant pot
and set the thing afloat in the pond. If it all goes west I shall just get a
proper water plant from the garden centre but I have high hopes for my
watercress; if only to gloat at “er indoors TM” should it
turn out not to be the unmitigated disaster she has confidently predicted.
I then got out the lawn mower and mowed. And immediately
stopped mowing and chased the dogs inside. Morgan has taken to attacking the
lawn mower, and Bailey copies everything her big brother does.
With lawn mowed I let the dogs out again and got out the garden
vacuum. Amazingly the pups showed absolutely no interest at all in the garden
vacuum.
It was at this point that my phone pinged with the
notification of the confirmation of the morning’s booking at the tip (!)
As I tidied the garden tools away I noticed Bailey was
limping. We couldn’t see anything obviously wrong with her leg. She let us
touch it and maul it about, but she was definitely limping. She must have
strained it somehow.
I really needed to get into the front garden to clear up
after the morning’s session with the “Bionic Burner” but I was beginning
to ache, and whatever it was that had made me feel grim yesterday was still
giving me gyp, so I sat down, cranked up the lap-top, and set about looking at
geo-puzzles in Suffolk in readiness for a few weeks’ time.
And with “er indoors TM” off bowling I
settled in front of the telly with the dogs and watched episodes of “Shameless”
as the dishwasher dishwashed and the washing machine showed my undercrackers
who is boss.
I’ve done more today on a rostered day off than I do when I’m
working…
No comments:
Post a Comment