Matters domestic

A week past Sunday we went along to our local bed emporium and tried out a few. Fortunately, the IKEA refund has come through, but that still left us with a bit more to find. To my surprise, I hated the expensive mattresses, and wasn’t wild about my usual choice of a firm one. Let’s hope it works out: we’ll know when it’s delivered next week.

I think we’ve brought our latest plumbing travails to an end. For some time, the cloakroom WC has been grumbling intermittently. When, yesterday, it started doing so at 45 second intervals, I decided that enough was enough, isolated and drained it, hoiked out the old float valve and then took myself off to a nearby plumbers’ merchant, bearing the offending apparatus in the by now rather painful mitt. £18, a pint of diesel and another half-hour’s grovelling on the cloakroom floor later, we seem to be grumble-free, the tank fills up far more quietly, and we no longer have hammering noises when we close a cold tap upstairs.  We have thus saved ourselves our usual man’s £80 first hour. The part would have cost less in one of the big sheds, but is brass-cored rather than plastic, so may last a bit longer. It’s nice to know that one is still capable of a few household maintenance jobs.
 

The Justice of the Peace

We have gardened a bit, but have also sat back and admired previous years’ efforts. The oriental poppies are flowering, as are the iris sibirica, cistus purpureus and a few roses. The best of the rudbeckia seedlings are planted out, and a sprinkle or two of slug pellets seem to have protected them from too much depredation. The slug and snail remains on the soil are ugly, but grimly satisfying. Today we have planted up a patio brazier that friends gave us a few years back. I think I’ve found a way to grow fuchsias in the top and trailing lobelias in the sides. We’ve also re-planted containers in which we’d had spring bulbs, reserving the bulbs for attention in the autumn. But we’ll have to find other ways of warming our shins on late summer evenings.

I've been boring facebookers with pictures of each

Mrs Pat Austin

new day's rose, so why should you blog-followers be spared?  Modest samples pasted in.  The garden gives us much pleasure (and just about as much pain these days...)  Anyway, the roses are all coming into flower, and despite benign neglect, aren't doing too badly.

The vegetables are doing quite well too: I think the spuds have had their last earthings-up, and the beans in the raised bed and the old pot sink seem to be happy.  We won't bother with courgettes this year: they need more space than we can give them, and the crop last year was unimpressive.

Annoying day at the hobby yesterday: I arrived to find three colleagues already there, and only one room working.  I flounced off home in a huff, and later learned that one of three had gone to the wrong venue.  Particularly annoying in that I had volunteered for the sitting at short notice.  Today's invitation to pick up a vacancy next Monday got a polite 'No, thanks', given that I'm already down for next Wednesday.  I'm beginning to look forward to being put out to grass (and with such a generous pension...) in a couple of years' time.