With the best will in the world, our garden isn’t as big as I’d like it to be, and the old-fashioned, 1930s style ‘open drain into which water from the kitchen runs’ system does mean that while relaxing in the garden is delightful, the spot that’s shady and thus my favourite (right by the house) is slightly marred by the occasional spray of running water draining away.
To be fair, it’s only ‘cos the washing machine is running.
It is, however, very very pretty out here.
There’re lots of flowers, there’re lots of butterflies, the sun’s shining enough that it’s warm, but the house provides much needed shade.
At any rate, I’ve decided on a programme of stress reduction. This is largely centred around such exciting things as getting the Regolith account closed (close current account, pay-the-damn-money on a requirement that as soon as it’s done the account is closed. Refuse to pay if they won’t close the account). Even just thinking about Regolith makes my stomach feel like it’s got snakes in it, which I don’t really need today because my stomach’s been feeling a little snake filled all day. Not nearly as bad as yesterday, but certainly not right.
Anyhow, on better topics, we got another clematis for the garden; the ‘mile a minute’ clematis having started to do it’s mile-a-minuting, a little further along the fence some more clematis, I felt, would not go amiss. So we’ve got some Clematis Macropetala (or Wessleton), we’ve also got some Erygium Planum (no idea what the common name for that is, but it looks kind of alien, and purple, it’s awesome); and a big pot and some Jasmine to grow around by the front door. We’ve also got some decorative grasses to grow in the front of the house, in our little garden there – although it’s going to spend most of it’s time hidden by cars, it needs something other than the Iris and the Rose. The buddleia will be going in there, I think, when it stops flowering (it can’t stay growing between the wall and the concrete, that’s not a good place for it) – but at the moment the front of the house is permanently surrounded by butterflies and that’s pretty darn spiffy.
In other stress reduction news I realised today that the car’s (Vixy) MOT doesn’t run out for *ages*, so I’ve only got to get one DAF sorted for it’s MOT. Vixy’s ropey welding doesn’t have to be dealt with in quite such a hurry. Which has made me relax a bit. I’ve finally forked out for a grotty little HVLP spray kit – so I can hopefully get a coat of paint on the bits of Jejy that need it, and on the new door for Vixy. If things actually stay working well for a while I may even put some filler on the dents in the bodywork and spray that (if I have any spray paint left after doing bits of Jejy (Bonnet, front panel, leading edges of engine bay, front wings) and most importantly Vixy’s new door. That said, having bought the HVLP compressor then getting a bit more paint isn’t that expensive, and will make both cars much more saleable when it comes time to go.
What I’d really like (in addition to my temperature not wandering all over the place like some kind of insane goldfish – I’ve taken some paracetamol* now, so that should hopefully make things a little less labile in the temperature department) is to have the motorbike together and running, because today is just the right kind of weather for wasting fossil fuels in a futile jaunt to the middle of no-where and back.
Yes, obviously, had I the money to build an electric MZ based motorcycle, I would. But I don’t, and I can’t, so…that’s really an end to it.
Anyhow, I’m going to get back to relaxing and reading and enjoying the garden for a bit :)
* AKA acetaminophen or ‘tylenol’, for those who like US brandnames.