Tag: DIY

Gardening diary

11 April

Potted Coleus cuttings

Potted Carnations cuttings

Hard trimmed the new hydrangeas

Moved cyclamen from pots to bedding

Potted new Chrysanthemums

Bought new Chrysanthemums, couple of moss Phlox, a Huchera, lots of peat-free compost, weed fabric for the side gutter, and a bracket for the new garden basket.

Still haven’t mowed the back lawn. It’s about an inch growth away from being declared a forest.

Non gardening update: finally put up new lights in the upstairs bathroom, with help from P. It took some effort, but it’s now the best lit bathroom in the house 🙂

All in a day’s work

Morning—Work.
2 horas of work, 2 commits, one publish. An hour off. 2 hours of work, including responding to half a dozen emails.

Break.
Walk the dogs. Lunch. Watch an episode of Star Trek Discovery.

Afternoon—Fix the tap.
Clean the working area under the sink. Wiggle into the tiny space under the sink and remove the old kitchen tap. Boys try to join me under the sink, and lick me to ensure I’m fine. Find two right sized pieces of wood from the pile under the shed (thank you previous owners). Spend another 5 minutes trying to get both the dogs out from under the shed, and into the house. Saw them (the wood pieces, not the dogs) into correct size and shape. Measure, mark, drill holes for the piping into the wood pieces. Fit the piping and the tap on top of the kitchen board. Realise the hole is too small for the top, thick part of piping. Disassemble everything, drill a smaller secondary hole. Reassemble everything. Wiggle back under the sink and fit everything together. Connect the water pipes. The little dog has dozed off with my right leg as his pillow. After a few minutes of fruitless cajoling, replace my leg with my rolled-up hoodie for his pillow. Get up and test everything is working. Wiggle back under the sink and tighten all the connections. Clean all the tools and the removed tap. The little one is still sleeping on my hoodie next to the sink. Open the fridge. Both the dogs are awake and ready for something, anything, from in there.

All this while cooking the little one’s meal (boiled chicken and rice) for next 24 hours.

Late afternoon—work.
The big one is sleeping behind me on the carpet. The little one is sleeping across us on the bed. I’m trying to work. Good luck to me!

Knackered. Happy knackered.

Saturday morning: 50th parkrun. Maddie remembered. Thank you Maddie. Paint pickup from Screwfix on the way home.

Got a happy S for company in the afternoon.

Spent the evening on the road behind the house, painting the fence. It took nearly 4 hours for 8 panels. The wood hadn’t been painted in at least 7 years, if ever. It was drinking paint. A 9L can didn’t finish a single coat on the 8 panels.

A late dinner, some Glastonbury on the beeb. Late night.

Today began late, with an aching body.

Took boys for a short walk. Then went for a 70 mins easy run.

Showered, ate, washed the dishes in the sink, made a coffee, and read a book.

Around 7pm, I returned to the rear fence with the second can of paint. Spent the evening clearing the ivy at one end of the fence, then giving the fence a second coat (first coat for bits under the ivy and the bottom fifth).

Finished at 21:30. Cleaned the brush. Fixed (correctly this time) the shower holder. Took a shower. Shaved.

Now, having a pre-meal of peanut butter toast with red wine. Chicken schnitzel is in the oven.

It’s been a productive, happy weekend.

The only area of improvement is that I didn’t get to spend much time with Duds 🙁

Ankle pain..

.. is a sign of weekend spent well.

Started yesterday with the year’s best time at the parkrun. Only by 2 secs, but on a very windy day.

Then walked the boys, fixed the bathroom door, almost fixed the shower holder, did a bit of weeding, and played with the boy in the backyard.

Ended the day totally knackered, with almost 18000 steps, and an aching ankle. Happy but hurt.

Continue reading Ankle pain..

Well begun, and well done

Started the day with Parkrun. 24:51 of running, and about just as long chatting with the regulars. In fact spent first lap of the run chatting too – Anne’s dad, Rich from Phoenix, Andy, and Val. Never really bothered to run hard, but ended up with a decent time nonetheless. All the chatting in the first half meant that I had a negative split 🙂

It was a near perfect start to the weekend – a good run, lots of friendly faces, sunshine, and lots and lots of lovely, friendly dogs.

Back home, spent two hours reading the book in the conservatory. It was a beautiful morning with lots of sun, but often interspersed with dark clouds and chilly wind.

After lunch, made myself a coffee, and called home. It turned into an almost hour long video call with parents. It was nice to see them both. It was even better to end such a long call without getting into a fight over anything 😅

Had planned to call a friend too, but the long call home drained all my calling energy.

So I started with the long planned cleaning of the utility room. I expected it to be a long slog. 7 hours of slogging later, I’m only about ⅔rd done. I didn’t expect it to be that long slog!

At least the output is looking good.

While I was cleaning, Soham came over to spend some time while playing a video game and chatting.

I’d also brought Dudley over for the evening. He wasn’t happy though that I was cleaning, and not spending time with him.

After the long cleaning, took a long, hot shower, had dinner, and now watching MOTD.

I’m knackered, and very sleepy. Not broken, yet. Might have to cancel tomorrow’s bike ride plan though

It was a very good day. Hope tomorrow is more of the same.

May bank holiday checklist: part deux

Continuing with yesterday’s update on the May bank holiday weekend:

✓ Shoddy DIY

Not really DIY, but assembled R’s new IKEA desk

DIY - IKEA assembly

✓ Suggest bike ride

Suggested, quite strongly, a bike ride to R. Got dismissed out of hand.

Thought of going for a short, solo one. Dozed off.

End of.

Misc

Went for a walk around Puttenham common. It’s a huge, beautiful green area just outside the next village, with everything – rolling hills with views of South downs and the Hog’s back, beautiful ponds (with swimming for both dogs and humans allowed), dense woodland (with colours varying from bright, adolescent green, to purple and brown), and lovely, dog & kid friendly pubs.

Had a lovely time. Even the lately tired, and grumpy, R was enjoying it today :)

And so the long weekend, with a happy, surprisingly good-weathered staycation, comes to an end.

Onwards!