So, yesterday I spent a few hours on the DAF and found out why she leaks (the windscreen wiper spindle seals are purely ornamental at the front, the window-seal-spreader strip is not fully in at the rear, and the mastic around the screen has failed), painted the sill and reattached the finisher strip and, bizzarely, replaced the windscreen wiper blades (how else d’y’think I noticed the spindle seals)!
This done, we decided to take advantage of the summer sales.
We’ve been contemplating a new set of garden furniture for a while and the summer sales are on at a wide variety of home improvement places. Having examined the options we opted for a set of director’s chairs and a table made of “hardwood” stained with teak-oil. This choice made, we went to B&Q to check the prices… and found them to be 15 quid more than the comparible homebase one. Now, B&Q is about 8 feet from our house. Homebase, a mile.
We walked to homebase, discussed it, and in the end opted to buy the homebase set. The idea being to sled-it back along the grass (since we aren’t worried about the box it’s in). Yeah. We got most of the way but the last stretch is all pavement, and not sled-able. We struggled for a bit until a very nice polish chap offered us a lift.
We considered the options. A: Take up the random bloke’s offer and hop in his car for the last 1/4 of a mile. B: Drag/lift/curse the furniture back to the house the last 1/4 of a mile. Exhausted as we were, option A was definately the best idea and we were given a lift back to the house by a really very nice polish gentleman. This is the opposite of our last experience with a local pole, who was, it must be said, both drunk and irritating. To be fair, at 3 in the morning being drunk on our doorstep and waking us up may have given him an unfair disadvantage in this race; but honestly? It does a country good when you meet someone truly nice who does something for no gain at all.
We got back to the house, assembled the furniture and I was surprised to have the individual who I’ve been railing against for damaging our shed appear at our back gate. A surprisingly civilised conversation took place and he’s paid for a new shed. Granted a very cheap and probably not great quality shed. The kind of shed which’ll only last a few years, unless well looked after, but it’s a new shed. We’ll repair the base and rip out the old shed… more rubble to haul away. But hey.
The new shed, also on sale, will be arriving in the next week. If anyone fancies giving us a hand removing the old one… repairing the concrete and putting the new one up… no? no one? Poot.
Anyhow, having got the garden set it’s now raining *lots* and the DAF is slowly filling with water – because now it’s got no holes to go out of…and I’ve got to go to work in an hour and a half, and so am debating alternately weeping (for how wet I’ll be) and cursing (the e-bayer who one-week-on from purchase has failed to send me any notice of posting, and who’s not yet replied to my ‘where is it’ e-mail – and thus has kept me from my hub-puller).
What we have done, however, is watch Juno – which I heartily recommend. It’s an excellent and quirky film – aided by the music of Kimya Dawson (who I think is awesome but continue to believe is mad as a teapot; her lyrics are just excellent but so strange). It’s really well shot, and I had little tears in the corners of my eyes as the end approached.
And now we must go and make Potato Latkis, for it is time for an early dinner, as I’m working from 1830…
