Sid didn’t wake me by shouting in the small hours, which was something of a result. Having seen all of “Superstore” during brekkie for the last few months, I had planned to start watching something that “My Boy TM” had recommended, but the Sky-Q box couldn’t find “Hardy Bucks” as a series; only as a film. So I started watching the second season of “Bonding” instead.
With
telly watched and brekkie scoffed I popped round to B&Q. The Internet said
they were working their usual hours today so I drove round fully expecting the
place to be closed. It wasn’t – they had opened at seven o’clock. As I was
about to walk in some chap marched past; no face covering, one of those green “I’m
exempt” lanyards and puffing away on a vape like a thing possessed. As I
watched in frank disbelief the chap on the door smiled and said that yesterday
three blokes had walked in with no face coverings, told him they weren’t
wearing face coverings, and asked (threatened) him what he was going to
do about it.
I
had a little look around the shop. They had a large plastic barrel that I could
have turned into a water feature, but at eighty quid I thought better of the
idea. Instead I got five humungous rock tile/slabs and came home.
My current garden project is to beef up the area in front of the shed. There were two issues I sorted today. The way from the paved area to the lawn looked rather awful with the water feature cabling being rather obvious. And the paving doesn’t quite go up to the fence where the little bench sits, and when it rains all the dirt washes out across that paving. I sorted both problems by laying humungous rock tile/slabs. My original plan had been to incorporate the doorstep into what I was doing but having disassembled the doorstep I suddenly realised that my plan was a bit daft. It only took three hours to get the humungous rock tile/slabs level and then put the bench and the doorstep back.
I
then had a stroke of absolute genius. Many years ago “My Boy TM”
had got me a water feature as a pressie. Some time ago I’d replaced it with a
water feature I’d made from a whiskey barrel, and had planned to incorporate it
into a rockery. But (to be honest) I never really liked the whiskey
barrel water feature.
Having
replaced garden sleepers (on 13 April) the whiskey barrel water feature
needed to be moved back, and as it was too heavy to move I needed to
disassemble it to move it. To be honest I never really liked it and much
preferred the original, so I spent an
hour or so taking the old water feature apart, and incorporating the remains of
the old one into something new. The “something new” needed a hole to be
drilled… having drilled the hole in completely the wrong place I then
compounded my error by trying to fill the hole with the exterior filler my
brother had used on the back of the house. Have you ever used exterior filler
before? Whatever you do, *don’t* touch the stuff. My hands stuck to
pretty much everything for the next hour, and the stuff completely failed to fill
the hole I’d drilled
In
the end I plugged the hole with Blu-Tack.
I scrubbed up the stones from the old whiskey barrel water feature and used them on some bare patches by the pond, then scrubbed up the whiskey barrel and spent a few minutes staring at it. Ideally I would have taken it to the tip there and then. But these days you need to make appointments at the tip. And the thing was still useable, so I posted a piccie of the thing to my Facebook feed, asked if anyone wanted it, and half an hour later Lisa drove off with it.
My
next garden-related job is to fix the cracks in the patio. Ideally that would
involve ripping the lot up and laying a new patio. But that would involve
moving/replacing the shed, and I wouldn’t know how to re-lay a patio, so I
think I’ll just see it I can get some sort of a filler. Ideally not the one
that I used earlier… perhaps I shouldn’t have thrown the stuff away in a fit of
pique?
Are
any of my loyal readers any good with holes in patios?
My plan was then to sit
in the garden, but the wind had picked up and it was rather cold. So I came in
and geo-puzzled until er indoors TM” boiled up dinner. It was
a good but of scran, but being a Jalfrezi it made me sit up and take notice.
I
suspect I will be farting like a thing possessed later. I shall blame the dogs.
