……… and we are home

 Got back after 9 days away from home to finally see the windows.   Quick check round and all seems good with them and we really should celebrate finally upgrading from single glazing.  An external light needs fixing where it has clearly been knocked with a ladder but that is very minor in the scheme of things and should not take long to sort.   The house is, however, in complete disarray.  Stuff is not where it belongs but the installers cleared away the dust sheets and it isn’t as mucky (well not quite) as I had expected so bonus!


The really big (and I mean HUGE) bonus is that my neighbour went well above and beyond.  He had been pressed ganged into watering the plants in the greenhouse (and if he remembered and had time the pots immediately outside).  Not only had he done all that but he had also watered the poly hooped bed, the pots in the ‘nursery/holding’ standing by the shed, the potatoes in pots which are temporarily under one of the apple trees while the windows were being put in and the herb and other pots outside the back doors.  


I had expected a number of losses but it looks like pretty much everything is doing well and some things are absolutely romping away.  I’m feeling slightly guilty.  He is a very safe pair of hand vegetable garden wise - his is large, traditional and immaculate.  I could never work out how he kept it so neat, until lockdown.   S reckoned it was little and often.  No, it was a lot and often.  Absolute labour of love with which I will never compete and to a level I will never achieve.  He is, however, in his mid 70s and I felt a bit cheeky asking if he would water the greenhouse while we were away but the weather forecast persuaded me I should try.  


Still there are a (good) few pesky weeds, bindweed particularly, that need to be evicted from the veg beds this weekend.  Plus, even with my standpoint that most housekeeping misses can be glossed over with dimmer switches, the house needs a serious clean. ……and I don’t know which fat pigeon it was but one of them has already had a go at one of my windows.  Most likely shortly after they had a go at my pea shoots.


Plus I need to pay the window guys.  Nothing says “thank you” quite like a quickly paid bill and in this case there is a new member of the family so all the reason ….. etc etc now that we are home.


It will be a busy weekend.    But first (well possibly after I pay my debts), we have managed to get return tickets to see Toyah Willcox - Songs and Stories.  Obviously, we both knew of Toyah in our youth but her YouTube channel, with her husband, Robert Fripp, was a ‘go to’ for us during lockdown so we are rather looking forward to it.





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