The House Husband

Earl Scruggs died today. He was an amazing banjo player. He played banjo on the theme tune for The Beverly Hillbillies along with Lester Flatt who, together, formed the Foggy Mountain Boys.

Earl was born in 1924 and popularised the three fingered banjo picking style which is what makes bluegrass music sound the way it does. He was so influential it became known as the Scruggs Style.

Here’s a great bit of plucking from Earl, Steve Martin and a few others.

Apart from thinking about bluegrass and hillbillies, I spent quite a bit of time in the garden today. I actually mowed the lawn – the first time since I broke my wrist. To be fair, it didn’t really need a mow until last week as it was settling down from the path but, even so, it was pretty lush. It now looks much better.

I also weeded then dumped a whole load of horse manure on the hot bed to give it a good feed. The day was hot and sunny so it was no problem working in it.

Speaking of which, yesterday Mirinda and I had lunch in Canary Wharf and had a lovely walk around in the sun. The whole place looked sparkly and new. Lots of people were out enjoying it, even the joggers, who normally look like they’re pushing the agony barrier.

Of course we saw lots of birds. These were my favourites. I think they’re Egyptian geese. They look like someone has pushed all their feathers up to their heads. They were involved in a bit of argy bargy and looked for all the world as if one wanted to pass the other but was refusing to move out of the way. Given they were in the middle of a huge basin of water, this was a bit silly.

Do you mind moving out of my way?

We also watched a pair of coots adding building material to their nest aboard the Tern Raft. The male gave his mate this long bit of twig but she wasn’t too certain. She also threw other bits off, which he’d take away for her. I reckoned he would then bring the same bit back, telling her it was a different twig.

And what am I supposed to do with this?

I like all the rubbish they’ve collected for the nest. And the little shrub they’ve planted for a bit of shade. Here’s their view back up the marina.

Looking back from the Tern Raft

We watched them for quite a while, before heading off for lunch at our favourite Lebanese restaurant. This weather is really spoiling us.

It was World Whisky Day today…apparently. People all over the world were having ‘events’. These events seem to consist of grabbing a bottle of whisky, grabbing a mate and drinking it responsibly. It was timed rather well because Nicktor came round to stay…but more about that later.

Another glorious day with no rain (pretty much the opposite of Queensland, according to Mum and Dad who seem to be surrounded by floods and very relieved they no longer live below sea level, like they used to) and stunning blue skies. It’s all very lovely but, really, we seriously need some rain. The south east is almost on drought alert with rivers drying up and fish moving to wetter climes.

Things are so bad that the blackbirds are having to use our bird bath. In most gardens this isn’t that unusual but in ours, the poodles drink most of the bird bath water – don’t ask me why – so the birds are quite lucky to get a look in. Or, in this case, a bath.

Do you mind not pointing that thing at me while I'm having my bath?

Actually I spent quite a lot of the day in the garden. Mirinda left detailed orders and I tried to accomplish a lot of them today. There were plants to plant, horse manure top scatter, grass to mow, beer to drink. Life just doesn’t stop. And life doesn’t stop for tulips either. The red ones have started to come out and are looking glorious in the sun.

So red, they hurt your eyes

And I mustn’t forget to mention the magnolia which is dropping its petals like a crazy thing…which is quite apt given it’s actually in the Crazies’ garden and only overhangs ours. Nicktor asked me whether I threw the petals over the fence, since they really belong to them. I said I was too scared.

Always lovely against a blue sky

I also had a few household management things to sort out as well as making some last minute changes to the spreadsheet I completed for Mirinda on Monday.

Anyway, as I said earlier, we had a Nicktor Night tonight and after the football (see tomorrow’s post), we made sure to toast all things pure and distilled in the world of whisky with a few wee drams of the Eagle of Arran. It was a pleasure.

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
And a Hankley update…I stole this photo from the Daily Mail website just so you can see what happened to what we call the monastery on Hankley Common. Apologies to the Daily Mail but I’ll include a link to their story as well.

Skyfall Lodge burns like a beauty - I hope Judy Dench wasn't in there!

Daily Mail link

We are hoping Hankley will be back to normal next weekend.

Well, my wrist was fine this morning. I guess the excessive exercise did it some good. However, the same can’t be said for my upper arms. It was ridiculously difficult to lift my arms up this morning. But the hedge could not wait so, after shopping and talking to mum & dad, it was back into the hacking, sawing and lopping.

I was joined, today, by Dave next door, who was busily trimming his side of the hedge. He finished in quite quick time because he was using an electric hedge trimmer.

Am I alone in hating these things? Ok, I’ll admit they do make things easier and quicker and I’m not adverse to things that do that. There’s no way I’d beat eggs into a meringue with a fork, for instance and our washing machine is an essential part of my life (I well remember mum’s boiler stick and mangle). So it’s not so much the convenience factor. It’s more the imposition.

Firstly, the imposition of the noise on my ears. I hate the sound. So loud and intrusive and, if the wielder has a big hedge job, it can drone on for ages. I’m possibly a bit more irritated by sounds than most people (apple crunching, crisp munching, tinny earplugs, etc) so I guess this one is a tad spurious and more than a little self centred.

The second imposition is on my joy. This sounds quite odd if I discount the sound thing. Let me explain.

One of the overridingly joyful things about gardening is the ambience. You work in the garden surrounded by the sounds of nature, be it the birds singing their many and varied songs or the insects buzzing around and this, particularly on a sunny day, is wonderful. The combination of working with nature while almost feeling like your part of it, is a delight. And in some ways you are.

When I dig a new bed, it isn’t long before the robins come down and peck around, hoiking out the worms I’ve disturbed. And I always love the sound of foraging blackbirds as they become used to my presence. (Actually, the foraging blackbirds can be a bit disturbing when you’ve grown up in Australia where a rustle in the undergrowth could mean sudden death. Fortunately I’m used to it now.)

I’ll admit to having the radio on but it’s always Radio 4 and the voices almost become part of the soundscape. It’s never loud enough to disturb anyone or anything and it’s informative as well.

Possibly that’s enough about my dislike of electric hedge trimmers…Nicktor would be asleep by now if he had started reading this. But it does move nicely into my conversation with Dave, across the hedge, once he’d finished making a racket. He told me the Story of the Hedge.

Dave’s Story of the Hedge

The people who lived in our house before the people who lived in our house before us, had two boys. Like most young boys, they liked to kick balls around. This was when there were no fences separating the gardens. For some reason unknown to Dave, the father of the boys was convinced Dave was irritated by the ball continuous finding its way into his garden, forcing him to retrieve it. Dave assured me, it didn’t bother him in the least. This makes sense, as I reckon Dave is the nicest man in the street.

Anyway, to remedy this imagined problem, the father put up a three foot fence in the back two thirds of the garden so they could kick the ball against it. I didn’t ask Dave how he felt about the constant thump, thump, thump but I knew how I’d have felt. Obviously, a three foot fence isn’t going to stop any balls kicked higher so, as a sort of slow but effective form of natural boundary, the father put in the hedge. The family then moved out, the hedge barely started, selling the house to Maxine and her family.

Oddly, the Crazies (our neighbours on the other side) were the ones who had a problem with Maxine’s girls. Not because they kicked balls but because they’d say things. The situation grew so bad that the Crazies put up a six foot fence so keep their nasty little faces out. I should add that I have always found Maxine’s girls to be nice and polite whenever they’d come round to collect the mail and find it difficult to think of them as horrid…and, of course, the Crazies are crazy.

One thing that Maxine and her family were not that good at was gardening. At least as far as the hedge went. They just let it grow. And it did. When we moved in, in parts it was ten feet high. While I quite like the privacy this sort of giant hedge affords, Mirinda dislikes the amount of sun the garden loses out on because it’s long and narrow. They’d also have regular burnings up the back which scorched the leaves of the final two plants meaning they’ll never be green again. Mirinda particularly hates that end of the hedge.

Now, our hedge may be tall but it’s minuscule compared to these trees.

The Queen's Bottom looking hazy but beautiful

Driven on by my success with the gong, today I pulled up the surplus bricks alongside the wonder path. It was more of an effort than it would normally be but I persevered and now have a lovely pile of bricks down the side of the house.

Of course, the removal left a long trench, devoid of dirt, at the edge of the path so I transferred a load of compost and dirt and filled it up. My wrist was a bit ache-y but I’m convinced it only did me good. Tomorrow I’m going to attempt a bit of weeding.

The weather has been quite grey so my bird photography was a bit off while walking up the park. I did get a crow coming in to land but the ones of it flying were all pretty blurred. Tomorrow I’m going to walk up to one of the ponds and see what I can find up there.

A perfect landing

I’m not sure why the sound file was not working properly yesterday. I tested it here and it works fine. I think it might be a buffer problem.

The Crazies are getting an extension. They had submitted plans a number of times and they’ve been turned down through no objection of our’s. Eventually, though, they must have changed something for the good because the latest plans were approved, dependent on a site visit by some guy from The Planning Inspectorate.

Due to the fact that he may want to view their house from our back garden, it was requested that I make myself available. No problem for me. I put the date on the calendar and, almost a month ago and on the appropriate day, I made sure I was here.

That day I received another missive from the Planning Inspectorate saying that the inspection had been cancelled because the inspector had taken ill (“…at short notice…“, the letter said…I would have thought taking ill was always completed at short notice…still, this is a government department and I know how they like things to be planned ahead for).

The letter went on to say that the writer (Alison) had tried to contact the Crazies but without success even though they’d called twice, left two messages and sent an email marked URGENT. They also tried to contact us by phone but the number they were given by the council was, in fact, the one belonging to the Crazies and so, I guess, they really rang them thrice.

It was a long, rambling letter which, basically, told me there was no later date because no-one could agree on one. Like a good, helpful person, I emailed Alison and gave her our number and email address. She emailed me when a new date had been proposed. That day was today. And so, I made sure I was home betwixt 1pm & 2pm in case access to our back garden was required.

After shopping, talking to mum and dad, walking the dogs and having lunch, I decided to bite the bullet and venture into the garden armed with rake, barrow and gloves. Today was to be a bit of a turning point. I was going to test my wrist out on some good, honest, labour.

Because my break and autumn occurred pretty much at the same time, the lawn has been a deepening bed of leaves to the point where the grass is barely visible. This is a shame on a few levels but it mainly irks because we have the path which should save the grass from winter destruction.

Speaking of the path, it’s not all good. I was a bit saddened that the big winds of last night managed to knock over one of the obelisks, the top smashing on the bricks of the path. Had the path not been there, it would have more than likely just been submerged in mud. It’s not fatal, however, and I shall fix it when I am capable of holding a nail.

But today was all about the leaf litter. So, armed with gloves, rake and barrow, I attacked the leaves, filling the leaf trap as I went.

How handy is our path!

It was while I was struggling with my task that the dogs alerted me to someone at the front door – they always get in before the doorbell is chimed which is quite handy if I’m up the back. I went to the door and met Mr JL Gray MSC DIPARC REGARC (that’s Diploma of Architecture and, I assume, Registered Architect though I think they each have an ‘H’ at the end), an inspector with a deliciously Scottish accent and an expensive looking winter coat that many people would surely covet.

He had been next door and now just wanted to have a look from our side so I invited him in and showed the back door. Being a man who owns a dog, he was very nice to the poodles who clearly detected the scent of his 15 year old Labrador upon his person.

He was born and raised in Aberdeen and is now a Sunderland supporter. How this happened is anyone’s guess but once again it is proved that most men can talk to each other about football if nothing else. We talked about the game on Saturday while he wandered up and down our luxurious path, about which he was most complimentary.

He wasn’t here long but long enough to ascertain the impact their extension would have. They already have a single storey extension and wish to add to it. It is Mr JL Gray’s job to make sure it doesn’t look too foreboding and intrusive. Of course it’s all hypothetical because he has to imagine it. This made me laugh. I asked him if that was all he did; imagine what extensions would look like in the future. It occurred to me that such a job would suit Mirinda. He assured me it was not.

Anyway, he was soon gone and I returned to the leaf matter at hand, working away until my hand started to ache unbearably, at which point I decided I should stop. I hadn’t quite finished but the leaf trap was full and the garden looks heaps better.

Before all of this, there was quite a lot of bird action on the feeder and I managed to get a few shots of the aggressive looking green finches.

Bah, humbug!

All in all, a pleasant and rewarding day with a touch of the surreal. I’m having a Nicktor Night tonight so the evening promises to be pleasurable as well.

It’s been a cold and dusty day at the house. Cold because the plumbers have been installing the new boiler which means there’s been no heating and dusty because the brick saw has been gradually getting closer to the back door. I’ve been sequestered upstairs, shivering.

Before the plumbers (for there were two) arrived this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that I should take a before and after photo of the boiler. Here’s the before:

And here’s the after:

New boiler

It’s a lovely new Italian boiler and took over 10 hours to install! The plumber left just before 7pm. Which meant I didn’t miss The Archers. It also meant being up all night scrubbing muddy footprints off the floors.

I did manage to escape the building site for a bit this morning when I went into town to pick up Mirinda’s new glasses. Otherwise, it’s just been me, the mess and the cold.

Sadly, the path wasn’t finished today. Dave has left a row of bricks that still need cutting (the approaching gloom defeated him once more) on Monday morning. He also needs to sweep the sand into the joints. Still, they worked very long and hard today as you can see.

Day 5

So the poodles will have fun dodging the gaps when they return on Sunday!

I just had include this that I spotted on Twitter. It’s what news anchors do when they’re not on air.

I was greeted with real enthusiasm at the Talking Newspaper today. It was my first time back since breaking my wrist. Of course, everyone I saw was very sympathetic, ‘oohing’ and ‘arghing’ at the right places as I told the story of my stupidity…which improves with each subsequent retelling. For a while I was telling people I did it snow boarding but ran into a problem when asked where. I have now changed it to sky diving. Much safer.

Anyway, we had a jolly time reading the Farnham edition. My headline was particularly jolly being about a guy who faked his own death and was caught when he used his HMV staff discount card. This led to the police examining his death certificate and finding his fingerprints on it. Talk about an idiot.

While I was away, Dave and his mate worked steadily through the morning – I took delivery of the bricks before they arrived – and finished the borders either side of the path. When I returned, they’d laid quite a few bricks and it’s really starting to look like a real path.

Day 4

I took these after they’d gone and it was quite dark. For this second shot I used the flash. I should explain that the bricks in the centre look lighter because of brick dust and not because they’re different!

Day 4 with flash

I’ll get a better shot tomorrow morning when the sun is actually around!

It made more sense to take yesterday’s photo when the sun was up so I took it again this morning.

End of day 2

The sun actually put in an appearance at lunchtime so I snapped this:

Day 3

The bricks on the right (up to the brick sized gap) have been mortared while the ones on the left are in readiness.

I saw the electrician who will be sending us a quote on work but, for joy, he said the wiring is fine and won’t need replacing for at least 20 years! He reckons it was replaced about 12 years ago. It makes such a change from finding millions of faults throughout the house.

After Dave and his mate had finished for the day, I went into town to have a lovely Lotus dinner with Mirinda. I do love our dinner dates though it does make for a very late night!

On the way back to the Tube at Canary Wharf, I noticed the lights of the newest Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior III. Since we’ve been invited to tour it on Saturday, I thought I’d have a sneak peek.

Rainbow Warrior III

Hopefully I’ll get some better photos on Saturday but it looked magnificent ablaze with lights.

Mirinda wanted to see the trench from the house so I’ve included this photo I took yesterday. It’s not from the patio because you don’t really see anything beyond the shrub circle.

Path from the house

It was a grey, dull and awfully grim day but Dave and his mate battled on. They arrived at 8ish and set the cement mixer going. I left them to it and went shopping.

I returned to find them hard at it so I rang mum and dad and had a lovely long chat which culminated in a successful repair to their browser toolbar.

But back to the path…Through the day the guys laid a membrane along the trench then a concrete ledge down both sides. This is for the side bricks to sit on. Then, once this had started to dry off, they filled the rest of the trench with hard core. Late in the day, they finished by flattening the hard core with a vibrating plate.

It’s really starting to look like a path now. I assume the bricks start tomorrow.

I took a few photos after they’d finished today but it’s quite dark and starting to rain so the images are a bit dim. Here’s the best one anyway.

End of day 2

In other house improvement developments…I have an electrician coming tomorrow to quote on some work and the new boiler will be fitted on Friday. I was also told today that we have two viewings on Saturday now. It’s all go around here this week.

Today Dave and his mate have arrived to put a path down in the back garden. The timing is perfect as I have a relatively free week. Also the quagmire has started to appear. Mirinda pointed out the not so red leaves of the acer, covered as they are in the mud thrown up by the poodles paws every time they go racing up the back on squirrel patrol.

I have set my good camera up in the spare room and will endeavour to take a photograph every half hour. Eventually I will put them all together in a sort of sped up garden path construction video. Fingers crossed it will work. In the meantime…here’s a taster.

The beginning of the new path

I was only given a few days warning they were coming this morning so I had to quickly book the dogs into the kennel. Fortunately there was room for them and I took them up this morning for an unexpected holiday. Of course it means I’ll be without them all week. Though, with the possibility of another viewing next Saturday, keeping the house tidy will be a lot easier!

But back to the path…Dave (the guy in charge) is a real whiz on the mini-digger. Watching him getting it down the side of the house and round the back was amazing. He’s a skilful driver.

It makes very easy work of digging the trench. Mind you, the guy working for him still has to haul the barrows of earth away. A very funny moment when he trod on one of Day-z’s squeaky toys and nearly jumped a mile. Oh, how we laughed.

By the end of play, they’d dug out the entire path trench, leaving it like this:

End of day 1

It’s already starting to look better.