Archive for the 'Around the garden' Category

Creosote

February 13th, 2011

When I was a child, one of the jobs I loved doing was painting things with creosote.

We used to have a lot of wooden things in the garden that needed treatment such as a couple of sheds, a garden bench and a few other bits and bobs.  I loved the smell of creosote.  It was somehow a very clean smell.  The best thing about painting on creosote was the philosophy of the more the merrier.  I used to just slosh it on and as a result it got everywhere.

I have installed some new woodwork in the garden.  It was a messy job and I don’t want to be doing it too often, so here was a job for the old creosote.  A good soaking in the black stuff will keep the wood going for a few years.

I went into town to the hardware store.  It’s one of those gigantic help-yourself supermarket type places.  In other words, a fucking nightmare. Even worse, there is never a staff member around who has a clue about what I am looking for.  I traipsed up and down the isles looking for creosote.  Then I traipsed left and right.  Eventually I found some stuff in a large can that was called something like Creo-Coat.  I was rightly pissed off with the place at this stage so I grabbed a can and went home.

I opened the can, and to all intents and purposes, it is creosote all right, but why the fucking name?  Then it hit me – brand something and you can whack a good 20% onto the price.  That still didn’t explain why the shop didn’t stock plain ordinary creosote though.

This morning, I was messing around on the Interweb and I looked up ‘creosote’.  What I saw explained everything….

That fucking EU is poking its nose into my affairs again.  Someone in his infinite wisdom has decided that I am incapable of using the stuff properly.   Apparently there is something carcinogenic about it and we all know that we are not trusted to use anything that may, but won’t, harm us in some far distant future. Apparently it is still on sale, but only to ‘professionals’.  The common man in the street cannot be trusted as he will probably drink the stuff by accident.

Is there any small corner of life left where we are treated like sensible adults?  Is there any facet of living that hasn’t got a raft of Nanny Regulations attached?

It would nearly drive me to drink creosote.

Pigs and coincidences

October 21st, 2010

There are times when I wonder about coincidences.

I couple of days ago, for no reason at all, I began to think about our guinea pigs. Our K8 looked after them while we were on holiday in June, and I sort of, kind of forgot to collect them again. So she has been happily looking after them ever since.

Shortly after that, I got a comment on one of my musings from Sighs, of Guinea Pig Sighs fame. I hadn’t heard from him in a while which saddened me as I like guinea pigs with attitude, and I like having a guinea pig commenting on my site.

I thought it was a strange piece of coincidence that Sighs should comment on the very morning I had been thinking about our wee rodents, but dismissed it as just that. Coincidence.

Later on that afternoon, I had a phonecall from our K8. As usual, she wanted to borrow something and said se was calling over. I said that was fine, as I wasn’t doing much anyway. She then coughed quietly and asked if she could hold a funeral in the garden. Somehow, I knew what was coming next.

Poor wee Fizz kicked the bucket that morning.

Our garden is becoming quite a respectable graveyard. There are dogs, a cat and a rabbit buried there, and now a guinea pig has joined them. It was a moving funeral. Our Puppychild did a rather sweet oration at the graveside and then went off and played in a tree house I had built her. Kids are fierce resilient.

I’ll miss Fizz. Of the two, she was probably my favourite.

Fizz the Guinea Pig

Sleep well, little Fizz

Dawn chorus

May 5th, 2010

I woke early this morning for some reason.

I was going to go back to sleep, but the devil got into me so I got up instead.  I’m glad I did.

Dawn was just breaking, and I stood out in the garden for a while.  The dawn chorus was quite spectacular.

There were blackbirds, thrushes, robins, tits [of the feathered variety], finches and a couple of pheasants [or it may have been peasants?] all vying with each other to be the loudest.  It was the most beautiful sound.

As I stood there, a fox strolled across the lawn which didn’t please Sandy.  She shot off after him and woke the neighbour who was fast asleep under the hedge.  I don’t know why it is, but whenever the neighbour has a rake of pints, he always ends up sleeping it off in my garden.  Doesn’t he know he has a garden of his own for that purpose?

I went back indoors, feeling full of the joys of spring.

Then it started to piss rain.

*sigh*

Now I’m tired.

After all, I’ve been up since dawn.

I think I’ll have a nap.

Fun and wife swapping

April 18th, 2010

I had a very busy day yesterday.

It was a beautiful day, so I decided it was time to do some long overdue jobs around the estate. There were hedges to be trimmed, ground to be dug and trees to be cut back.  I set Herself to the digging while I trimmed some shrubs.  I had to leave the tree pruning as I didn’t have a suitable saw.  I even cut the grass.

Of course, having cut the grass, I had to have a bit of a smoke.  Then the neighbours got wind of it, as it were, and they wanted a sample of the grass too.  We ended up having a bit of a neighbourly barbecue.

It’s funny how these things get out of hand.

Somebody suggested a spot of wife swapping.  I was all on for it, but for some reason Herself wasn’t too keen.  I persuaded her that it was all in the best interests of the community spirit, so we went for it.

I’m very glad we did.

I swapped her for the loan of a chain saw.

Going through the motions

April 7th, 2010

We have a septic tank in the garden.

I know we have, because I built it.  In those days, there were no sewers or any of those so called modern conveniences, so you had two choices – a chemical toilet or a septic tank.  I don’t like the stink off chemical toilets, so a septic tank was the order of the day.

I read somewhere recently on the Interweb that these tanks are supposed to be pumped out on a regular basis.  I had a funny sort of idea that there was some kind of maintenance called for, and had idly decided that the thing to do is to wait until the tank stank.  It doesn’t stink at the moment, though I don’t generally go sticking my nose down the vents, so I have decided to let sleeping turds lie.

I built that tank back in ‘65 or ‘66.  It is the best part of forty five years old, but it has never been pumped, or cleaned out.  There are poos in there that I dropped when I was a teenager.  Maybe I should open it up as a museum?   

If something does go wrong with it, then I have a little bit of a problem.  Back in the days when it was built, there was easy access, but in the intervening forty five years, a load of trees have shot up, which means there is now no way for a lorry to get to it.  I don’t know what they do in this situation?  Do they take the lid off and empty it by hand, using buckets?  Maybe they could dig a trench and let it empty itself into the river that flows past our place?

I confess, I haven’t really given it much thought up until now.  It has lain there doing its business on my business and we have left each other alone.  To pump, or not to pump.  That is the question.  Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to let the neighbours suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous stench or to take arms against a sea of shite.

I think I’ll leave it alone.

It’s too nice a day to worry about these things.

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