Saturday 24 November 2012

Annoyances

  Someone changed the boiler recently.  The new one has a narrower flue and exhaust than the old one, which means the hole in the wall needed mortaring to a narrower gauge so as to be snug to the new pipe.  Fair enough, but they didn't put a tarpaulin down before they started mortaring, so the stuff went everywhere!

  • It left indelible streaks on the patio.
  • It discoloured a chunk of my bench, which'll mean an afternoon spent sanding and revarnishing.  
  • It gummed up the head of my leaf rake.  
  • It got on the lawn, shot the pH up through the roof and killed a square metre.  
  Grass likes a pH of between 5 and 7.5.  At 7.5 it gets sick, at 8.5 it dies.  I'm treating the area with citrate over the Winter so that I can try and reseed in the Spring.  Balls!  

In other news: aphids!

Things aren't all bad though.  I need some manure and Nathan (the mate with the horse) has offered to drive some round in the boot of his car.  This comes as a relief, because trying to cart a barrowload of poo on and off the train might raise a few eyebrows at the very least.  He drives up from Redhill to visit his partner in Boston Manor, so Strawberry Hill is about 50p's worth of petrol as a deviation from the normal route.  Easy peasy.

Life ain't all bad.

2 comments:

  1. I would be livid if someone caused me all that grief just because they didn't use a tarpaulin. I don't envy you all that clearing up; I do, however, envy your choice of friends... oh for a friend who was willing to fill their car boot with horse manure for me. That is the stuff of dreams.

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    1. He's my best mate and he knows I'd return the favour. I can't say I'm happy about the grass, but I'll need to overseed it in the Spring anyway to thicken it up for the Summer. This'll just be a little extra. The patio is the patio, it's never been what you'd call a thing of beauty. I guess what I'm most miffed about is the bench.

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