Fifteen spare minutes to make more marks on a virtual page. I keep in front of me a small blue notebook for writing in ink but really only add snippet when travelling. All adds to the volume of work by Tref that will largely remain hidden until the end of time.
It is quite nice when you come across forgotten stuff from many years ago. I have the diary I kept when hitchhiking to Greece at the tender age of 19. One day I’ll try and read the almost certainly barely legible script and move it into Arial 10 or 12 for sharing. Will need to check what I wrote first mind you.
We don’t seem to have the opportunity for adventure that used to exist, at least not in the same way. Most things have already been discovered or been done. Doesn’t mean you can’t redo them I suppose.
One thing I would quite like to do is pop over to Paris for a totally free and unconstrained couple of nights. I want a night in Harry’s New York Bar and dinner at Au Bon Coin. In fact I could also squeeze in La Coupole where Hannah took me one night when she was in residence. If anyone is up for it I’m sure I could find a reason for going.
It’s unlikely we will be stopping in Paris in September 2023 when we head over for the Rugby World Cup though you never know. I think I’d need to find somewhere secure to park the campervan.
Coming back to the writing in ink comment I have to write in block capitals these days as my “joined up” handwriting is worse than ever due to lack of practice. This means it takes me ages to write anything down. Far faster typing it in. I think I must have told you that before. Sanagethinginnit.
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Wednesday
Yooves walk by en route to the pedestrian crossing and thence to continue their education. I could have said children walk by but apart from artificial metrics such as legal ages I’m not sure where you draw the line these days on when is a kid not a kid. There will be a mental maturity element to it.
Off to Doncaster this am to pick up some reupholstered campervan seats. V exciting. For us at least. Got a few jobs to do on the vans before the season starts in April. New radio/stereo, wheel bearing replacement, bit of rear panel paintwork and new floor as well as installing Westfalia sink unit. All good stuff.
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It raineth steadily creating a very relaxing environment in the shed. I did get an emergency call asking me to take the washing down of the line which I duly did. I am a good boy.
The timing is good for the rain as yesterday I emptied the water butts on either side of the greenhouse, cleaned them out and made sure the self levelling hose pipe connecting the two was not blocked. Now the butts should refill nicely with water from the skies.
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The water butts, emptied the day before for cleaning, completely filled up with yesterday’s rain, relentless. The thundering of the rain on the shed roof made video conference calls harder to hear and I melodramatically posted on the family WhatsApp group that I could be stranded. The response from the house was that I might miss dinner but was able to reassure everyone that a tunnel was possible.
I braved the storm and made it safely into the main house to everyone’s undoubted relief. We came back the other way to watch a very exciting game of football in which Liverpool prevailed over “the” Arsenal to move within one point of Man City at the top of the Premiership.
This post is not about football. I will happily leave that to aficionados everywhere enthusiastic to comment on their side’s progress, or otherwise. We are talking water butts.
The greenhouse has one either side of the door gathering rainwater from the guttering and joined at their bases by a hosepipe which creates a single storage entity. A convergence of the twain.
This usually works well but last summer there was a blockage in one of the connections that meant the secondary tank did not feed the primary thereby temporarily reducing the overall storage capacity.
This year I have anticipated the problem by thoroughly (ish) cleaning both butts and the pipe before the start of the growing season and the reinstating of the solar powered irrigation system. The system was tested yesterday morning and the pursuant rain proved my forecast that I would not need the assistance of Anglian Water to refill the butts.