Derek and I play a game called 'Wordstorm' on our iPhones occasionally and in doing one puzzle together this week, I learnt a new (and useless) word 'opine' which he knew which means to state as an opinion or express an opinion, obvious when you think about it but when are you ever going to say or read in a book "'I think you look silly in that hat!', she opined". I mean, it just doesn't sound right, posh but not right! And Derek learnt from me the correct word for a fork prong, tine; just one of those words you think everyone knows but sadly not!!!! Now he does!!!! So it is still good to learn little things from each other from time to time. xx
Anyway to explain the tree; a drains problem again but this time on the other side of the house and the 'smelly' ones. They started backing up yesterday afternoon and one of our very helpful neighbours, Lindsay, came round to help us but no luck. So this morning I stayed home, popped over to Lindsay and Glynnis's (who proceeded to show me round their lovely home and garden) then on his advice dashed round to the Council Offices on my bike to get the plans for the house hoping they would show where the inspection point would be and lo and behold, there they were. So after photocopying and paying for said copies, I dashed home all proud I had done the right thing and dug a 3 foot deep hole where the plans showed the IP would be. No inspection point to be found just dug up plants and lots of, luckily, sandy soil which was easy to dig at least. Later I was told by the plumber that Derek rang that it wasn't necessary!!!! Bl..dy men!! Now they tell me!
He'd been here about 4 years ago with the same problem of tree roots in the main drains and on that occasion had put in a big tube by the front fence for easy access. So after filling up this big tank on the back of his trailer with water and pushing this pipe connected to the tank into the access tube, he blasted and cut the roots to ribbons with his wobbly pipe and hey presto, after five minutes of shoving this pipe in, all my drains drained and I was one very happy bunny! (The smell was getting noticeable in this heat wave we are having, most embarrassing!) So job done now, toilets flushed and washing up from last night done too. Just the bill to get in the post!
So, in conclusion, if you ever get a tree cut down and don't treat the stump, DO. We are now going to fill it with whatever the lovely girl in Mitre 10 recommends on Saturday therefore stopping the problem from one tree at least, just the other four to go then!
Anyway because of the heat we didn't do that much at the weekend but still got lots done. We shopped for paint on Saturday as it was 35% off at Guthrie Bowron so we got two lots, one for walls and one for metal. So Derek painted the three garage doors on Sunday so instead of the leary peach they were, they are now a rich chocolate brown and look so much better, they match all the window and door frames now. The other paint is for the corridors but we are going to wait until it gets cooler to do them. I pulled up old veggies, peas and beans that have finished and put in new ones, broccoli, cauliflowers, more spinach and beets and filled up the compost heaps. We are still getting lots of tomatoes and courgettes and lots of blueberries too. I do love my veggie patch. The beans have been great too and are on the back wall with the tomatoes so will swap sides for them next year, something to do with pests and not growing the same things in the same place each year.
We bought a garlic press in one of them as mine 'died' last week and this one is funky and bright green, Derek's choice, most probably as now when I ask him to pass me it out of the drawer he will be able to see it and not give his usual answer of "it's not here". As my Dad would have said, "Look further than the end of your nose!".
So it's time for me to start dinner and to venture into my greenhouse of a kitchen. I'm not going to do anything too complicated, it's just to hot to bother. You'd think we'd loose weight but we don't seem to be doing. I feel like I'm all swollen up instead, most probably from all the water I'm drinking.