I slept well, but was wide awake about three hours
than I would have wanted to be. I tried to nod off, but I gave up and was
peering into the Internet far too early this morning. And it was much the same
as it ever was.
There was a frankly incomprehensible post on one of
the pond-related Facebook pages I follow. Someone was trying to compare pond
filters but their posting was about half a page long, lacked any punctuation at
all and was frankly gibberish. To give just one example of what the readers
were up against, at one point I think the chap was trying to compare two
different filters. I would have written “this one does such-and-such as
opposed to that one…” However, this fellow didn’t like the phrase “as
opposed to”; preferring to use “has a post do” instead. Sadly, most
people replying to his question (I *think* it was supposed to be a question
and not a rant) were asking “WTF are you talking about” rather than
offering any advice, and offence was being taken all round.
There were posts about today’s Jack In The Green
festival in Hastings. We’ve been down to it in the past and had a great time.
With the weather forecast for today having improved I vaguely considered
kicking “er
indoors TM” out of bed and and
getting ready to go there. But it wasn’t really practical. The train
from Ashford only has two carriages and would have been rammed *if* it
had been running. I later found out it was a bus service today. If we’d driven,
the nearest place to park would have been about a mile away up the hill where
my gran used to live in Clive Vale.
“Daddies’ Little Angel TM” sent
a message. She’s thinking about signing up for medical experiments. That would
give her something to do.
I Munzed, I Wordled from a useless start with “would”
onto a slightly better “shine” and almost got it with “miser”,
and did get it on the fourth attempt with “riser”.
I went into the garden. Once I’d gathered dog turds I
had a look at the garden’s biggest water feature. On Saturday I saw it wasn’t
working. After a little farting around I found the problem was in the length of
cable from the shed to the switch. Plugging the thing into the cable I use for
the lawn mower had it gushing like a thing possessed. So the fix was easy.
Simply replace the length of cable from the shed to the switch.
How easy to type.
Not so easy to do.
First of all I needed about fifteen metres of cable. I
could have gone to B&Q but from experience I’ve found the staff to be surly
and unhelpful (and that’s when they are in a good mood) so I drove
across town to Wickes. I got what I needed, but whilst I’d been out so the
outlet centre had opened. The roads were something of a nightmare coming home.
Once home I had a cuppa, then cracked on.
I hoiked out as much of the old cable as I could, laid
out the new and trashed the switch in the process. But nil desperandum.
I just wired in the outdoor switch that I’d found in the shed. I wonder what
I’d bought that for? But it was in the shed so I thought I’d use it. I wired it
all up, switched it on and then I realised a problem. This switch that I’d
found was absolutely useless in that it only worked all the time I held it
down. When I released it, it turned off. So, with all else having failed, I
read the instructions. And saw that was how the switch was supposed to work. What
did I ever get it for?
I went back to the shop.
As I’d driven home earlier the traffic from the outlet
was queuing back past B&Q; going to Wickes would have taken an age so
against my better judgement I went to B&Q. “er indoors TM” came;
we made a little dog walk of it. I
found an outdoor switch and queued for ages before I could actually get it.
There were two tills with staff on them. All the others were self-service ones
and the surly chap who works there was openly sneering at the people struggling
with the self-service tills.
I came home… and saw that there were no screws to
close up the box of the switch I’d just bought. I sighed and went back to
B&Q. The surly chap was standing underneath a sigh saying returns so I went
up to him and cheerfully announced my issue. He cut me off and grunted that I
should bother the ladies on the tills who were working and not bother him who
was clearly doing nothing.
The nice lady on the till suggested I might like to
get a new switch…I had a look and saw that all of the boxes like the one I
wanted had been opened and all of the screws had been removed. Who on Earth is
that sad that they nick all of the screws from the outdoor switches in B&Q?
I got a more expensive one, and we checked it was all
there.
I came home for the third time, and this time all was
good. I wired up the new switch and all worked fine. I then spent an hour or so
moving gravel and shingle and slabs to hide the new cable. After six hours the
garden was back as it had been before; albeit with a working water feature.
I then scrubbed the algae from the water line in the
big pond and cleaned out its aerator pump. I only did that a few weeks ago.
I had planned to hoik out the dead cordyline and put
the lilac tree cuttings into place, but that can wait for another day.
As I’d pulled out the old poggered cable earlier, I
saw that it had been chewed. That’s not good. I ordered an ultrasonic rat
deterrent which should arrive in a couple of days. Good old Amazon.
“er indoors TM” boiled up burgers
which we scoffed whilst watching a couple more episodes of “The Orville”.
I know we’ve seen them all before; I don’t remember any of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment