Daydream fund challenge part 4

choille

Overcast here but blue skies over East we hear so off to the Blackisle Show!

Your builders etc Dave seem to be about as quick to get around to doing stuff as ours - still waiting a price for road finishing & joiner coming back.

Very midgied here today after the showers - torrential rain the last few days - weather is nuts.

Davesnave

Just found this in the image sharing site I'm using and thought I'd share it with you guys.......

http://imgur.com/gallery/2WGvx

:rotfl::rotfl:

greenbee

I've got a weeping willow that looks very unhappy. Could it be a temporary reaction to the stress of the dry winter/spring/early summer, or should I assume that it's dead and have it taken down? There are so few leaves left it could probably be done now rather than waiting for autumn.

choille

I had a tree that did that & I went to shift it only to find that it had been totally undermined by moles voles - mice & it's roots had been cut. It was jiggered.

greenbee

Ah... voles could well be the problem... although it's HUGE...

Davesnave

We have a willow which isn't a weeper, but it's definitely on the way out. Stands about 25' tall and must be a foot across at the base.

We think it's just a short-lived tree. Voles aren't doing a lot where it is and several smaller goat willows have also pegged-out nearby. We won't be planting willows as replacements.

Had a last minute offer in the post from Mr Conservatory.....£500 off! :wall:

He's still in denial. He now claims the box gutter was given to us free; the implication being that our contract didn't apply to it. I suppose the benefit of vague paperwork is that one can make ridiculous statements like that.

We are not entering into any more discussions with him. Arbitration is the only sensible solution now, but he may not wish to go there.

DaftyDuck

Stuff's happening here - of sorts.

There's a man on the roof, throwing chunks down at us as we pass. We have therefore upset a hornets' nest on a lower bit of roof just to upset him. He has therefore pulled his ladder up, before lowering it on the other side, and is now throwing bits onto the lawn...

It's controlled chaos out there. Ian ( a lovely chap) has started a bit earlier than intended (a builder... early??? :eek:) on roofing work. He's one of those blokes with no fear of heights (well, not that he will show), and the easiest way to move the ladder to the other side is straight up, over one of the roof apexes, then back down the other side. I have been up there, and it's quite snug between the main roof ridges - could hold a party one day - but I'm less keen on the outer edges. There are several areas of felt to replace, a few tiles, a few bits of mortar, some more felt, another few tiles that turn out to be broken, perished lead, odd gulleys... I can see him moving in up there. (He is actually moving onto the farm in a few weeks, when he gets going proper... maybe I should just nick his ladder, and throw up buns in the meantime?

The hornets were friends (I do admit to being weird) who lived on the low roof by the scullery. They, large elegant orange and hairy, buzzed about just above us, we toddled around just below, and neither intended harm on the other. But, with Ian rather precariously perched with his toes in a gutter, or clinging to an aerial cable, trundling up and down beside them... something had to give, so I murdered them. Poor blighters, they were so beautiful.

Lucky escape: one of the loo flushes was failing (dead diaphragm), so set out to replace it. Old style one, where cistern has to come off wall. Thought I'd clean off the historic limescale that had flowed in a seam from the handle down.... AH! Wasn't a leak down from the handle, but a crack running from the handle, all the way down, and ripe for failure. So, new loo. p1ss easy, done many. But, the pan outflow connector is buried in tiles, fixed in height, and is ancient imperial-sized. So, more bits, plumbers' mait, whatever will be required... and the real irritation is, that whole bathroom will be redone in a couple of months or so. Grrr! Bogs are NOT my favourite passtime.

Just before, on Monday I went up to hostipal to have a couple of moles checked out. I do get several going funny every so often, and the consultant thought these should be whipped off some time, no hurry, so sent me over to surgery to make an appointment. Plonked my papers down, and they responded: "Want it done right now? We've had a cancellation"... So, an hour later, I was sliced and diced... but hadn't really planned on having a quiet couple of days. I have sticky pads on left arm and right leg, and squeak when poked. Which she does. Cruelty, I call it, she giggles.

Anyway, I have a Toolstation order tomorrow with everysinglepanconnectorpossible ordered in one batch. Something will fit something else, something has got to.

Then, I can start thinking of ripping the whole bathroom out, and build from scratch!

Sun's out, grass is growing, windhovers are hovering, sweet life continues in the breeze, in the golden fields, the sheep may safely graze, so all's well that ends well.

Ouch. Stop poking me for fun, woman!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Davesnave wrote: »

It has a few uses. In our case, it forms an inexpensive barrier between us and a couple of neighbours we don't wish to see/hear. I appreciate that other evergreens might be used, but these cost at least a fiver apiece, whereas laurel is available here at the side of the road......

Also, after gentleman farmer next door decided to rely on our fences rather than maintain his own to contain the sheep on his rented-out field, we thought it politic to warn him that there were laurels about. This may have had a good result, as new fencing went in shortly after, although we'd already taken steps to ensure the sheep couldn't reach them.

I think everyone who drives a minibus ought to take a basic PSV test. DD2 only became a 'real' driver in early 2016, yet within a couple of weeks she was expected to pilot a minibus for her staff's visit to head office 100 miles away. Madness.

Mr Rod, our plasterer and drain man, rang last night. Appropriately, we were in the middle of a get-together for our builder and his wife to celebrate the end of his work here and their imminent departure to a new life in Oz.

He, (Mr Rod) will be here this morning to size-up all the interior work on the conservatory and the rest of the external rendering. This doesn't actually signal a start to the work, but at least we are now on his radar......:j

Meanwhile, with no word from the MD of the conservatory co, I shall probably be contacting the GGF today to see what we do next....if anything.

Currently wet & windy here, so the courgettes are turning into marrows, being allowed to do that to keep the plants weighted down!

Day #2 wasn't so bad. For a start, it didn't rain.

Peacefully pottered away making a clearing until coffee time. At this point, one person managed to pour tea over their hand instead of into their cup and then the greatest irritant decided to try and pour my coffee for me as I was already doing it. Really? It's not a tricky operation - black coffee into mug, walk away. In his rush to appear Useful, he kicked over the can that the fire was burning in. And then went to pick it all up with his bare hands.


You know that voice parents, teachers and dog owners get - the one that comes from the very depths of their being/the bowels of the Earth, and generally involves an arm shot out at light speed to restrain the errant child from dismembering themselves or said hound halts in his tracks as though he's been struck by lightning? It works on groups of middleaged conservation workers as well. The entire group, mid coffee/tea and mid chat, fell silent as one.


When I left to go back to my area, the group leader was still laughing at me.

Purely coincidentally, I was left alone all day by the manly man men. Although I might have, in the process of clearing obstructing foliage to get a clear path to/from the laurels/stop them getting caught in the canopy/make it easier for the chain saw operator to get going, accidentally set up a five foot high perimeter blockade made entirely of Holly branches and shoots that were at eye level or springing up from the base of established trees. Perfect for repelling wild animals and other [strike]annoyances[/strike] unwanted visitors. And we would have been crown lifting it if there hadn't been so much Laurel....

Finished the day after my pile reached five and a half foot high and consisting of 3-4 inch thick, 15-20 foot high saplings all cut into convenient pieces, just sitting on a fallen birch, gawping at the bracket fungi and watching the Robins and Wrens examining the scrapes in the leaf litter where I had been moments before.

Turns out I was felling the things correctly, despite a lack of being told how to do it - it just made sense to look at the way the trees wanted to fall/I wanted them to fall, clear the path it would fall along and anything I could trip on around me, make a smallish wedge shaped cut on the side I was aiming it, then cut flat from the other side to join it just above the point of the wedge so it couldn't push back if it caught in the canopy or catch and hold the saw, which I guess would be called a bow saw, as it's bow (as in 'and arrow') shaped?



One of the other women in the group told me about a second camping shop that's opened up in town, whilst I told her where the original one had moved to, so when I got home, Himself suggested that we go to both tomorrow in search of affordable boots and a waterproof coat for me. Conveniently, that takes us past the local, which is doing a special promotion on ales right now, so there's some benefit to be gained from agreeing to the dreaded Shopping Trip.


Glanced out into my garden when I got back. The sweetcorn seems to be trying to produce strands for pollinating, if not cobs. But I could easily chop back a hell of lot more stuff now I've got the hang of it.


I think a long hot bath is in order tonight, though - I'm not aching a huge amount, but my forearm and bicep muscles are easily twice the size they were this morning.

pink_poppy

choille, good to see you back. I was up near Beauly a couple of weeks ago, so lovely up there

Davesnave

pink_poppy wrote: »

choille, good to see you back. I was up near Beauly a couple of weeks ago, so lovely up there

Beauly or Beaulieu, they're both lovely, but we could only afford to buy in one of them! Unfortunately, the other one is a bit far from the kids, and anyway, DW doesn't like the cold or anything that bites......:(

So I guess we'll stay here, but I'd be up near there like a shot, given half a chance.

And speaking of the kids, DD2 suddenly appeared hot-foot from Bristol yesterday, having made arrangements to buy a couple of ferrets near here. She took two little polecat chaps, so now I'll have to take the ferret quarters up to Bristol in the van. They're too huge for a car.

Her husband-to-be looked bemused. I think this is probably the first time it's hit home that she has this other love in her life, which is non-negotiable....:o

Mr Rod thinks he'll get here mid to late September, so that's October then.

Have fun with your bog Dafty. :beer: I have a dislike of bogs, many of which do not work very well, and for which hardly any seats either fit or stay in place. Back in the 60s we had a siphonic, which not only worked, but never needed anything tightened up. The seat on our poshest bog here cost over £70, yet I still had to change the fixings to shakeproof nuts.

OK, no jokes about the stresses and strains I put it under!:p It was always when our builder (17 stone) had been in there that things went skew-whiff, but even so, it should have been able to cope.

Here endeth this morning's rant.....:A