Not out of the woods yet

We have had a week of fine weather, and have had lunch out on the terrace most days, yesterday with the pleasure of Celia and Andy’s company.  They have both recovered well from Covid, as have several members of Martyn’s family.  A central heating fixer we tried to get in during the December/January fun and games with the boiler had to cancel because he had caught it.  The plasterer we want to use is testing positive, so it’ll be a while before he can come and have a look.  One of my German conversation group friends has caught it, so was coughing through the zoom meeting on Tuesday.  And yet, when we visit the shops, we are among the few (mostly older) people wearing masks.  A former colleague of Martyn’s is recovering from his third attack of Covid, the latest one having required a visit to A&E.  Fully vaccinated and all.  We’re not in a hurry to lower our defences.

Our insurer’s emergency call-out man did not, as he had assured us, find nor isolate the leak.  After various increasingly frustrating conversations next day with said insurers and their co-conspirators (while the regular drip continued) we decided to take the bull by the horns and bear the costs ourselves.  A plumber we’ve used a lot in the past came on Wednesday, diagnosed the problem and fixed it on Thursday.  The insurers had offered to send a ‘test and trace’ person next Monday and a plumber goodness knows when.  Oh, and wanted the £350 excess up front.  However tempted, I didn’t actually utter a soldier’s farewell, but thanked them for their advice and told them we would not be proceeding with a claim.  The bill is going to be a stinker, but it’s worth it to have a functioning home in a reasonable time.  I hate to think how much more damage there would have been had we accepted the insurers’ timescale.  Recommendations for good home insurers, please.  Not including LV, thank you kindly.  

We gather that the warm weather is coming to an end.  But it has been a delight to get out in the fresh air, and the garden is starting to reward our modest efforts.  We have enough variety of narcissi to keep the colour going, the magnolias are flowering well and it won’t be long before the viburnum joins in.  The spiraea is coming into its all too brief flowering season, and of course the polyanthus just go on and on.

Interesting Times

 …as the old Chinese curse would have it.  There is nothing I can contribute to the commentary on the Ukraine situation that hasn’t been better put by others.  Save to express the hope that Moldova is keeping its powder dry.

Early on Sunday morning I noticed a mark on the hall carpet: water.  On looking up, I could see a dripping bulge in the ceiling.  Our insurers agreed to send an emergency plumber, though it took over six hours to get him here.  It turned out that the nearest available chap was 57 miles away, and it didn’t help that his satnav sent him twice round hell’s half acre.  By the time he got here, we’d found water on the floor of the airing cupboard beside the hot water cylinder.  The plumber found the leak in the pipe work leading to the shower valve, and isolated the supply, so until that’s sorted, we’re left with the feeble shower over the bath.  Our last disaster was on Boxing Day, so our property seems to lack respect for high days and holidays.  Not clear what our next steps are, but I’ll speak to our insurers again in working hours.  Perhaps the only good thing about all this is that, since the ceiling will have to be repaired, we can get rid of the horrible artex.  But goodness knows how long it’ll take to put it all right.  And that’s before we start on the bathroom refit.  Meanwhile, the drip continues at about the same pace, and the insurers’ contractors have not been in touch as promised by close of business.

Fortunately, it has been good gardening weather, so I could keep myself busy.  I planted out a couple of miniature roses by the front door, and some penstemons beside the little greenhouse.  The grass is looking pretty dreadful: when I cut it the other day I started with the mower set too low: when the mower protested, I reset it and carried on.  An ugly scar bears witness to the first few passes.  But elsewhere things are starting to look up.  The hellebores are flowering well, as is the little magnolia stellata at the front.  The pink magnolia Susan is showing some colour, and neighbour Annie’s pink camellia is putting on a fine show above the fence.  The snowdrops are over, and the crocuses are looking pretty tired.  But the various sorts of narcissi come up at different times, so keep the colour going for weeks.  The garden waste bin was emptied today, and is already close to full with penstemon and cistus prunings.

I have also vented a bit of spleen at British Gas, who have (which has?) failed to respond within the promised eight weeks to my 6 January snottygram.  Thank goodness for sunny days and alfresco lunches.

Signs of spring

We spent some time in the garden yesterday, Martyn dead-heading the hydrangea and I pricking out some nicotiana seedlings and potting up geranium cuttings.  The latter two subjects had come on well in our new heated propagator: it has seven little trays with clear plastic covers, so I’m less likely to bring on my usual vast number of seedlings and cuttings.  Yesterday’s stuff is now out in the mini greenhouse to harden off and grow on a bit.  This morning I’ve thrown out a lot of old seed, and sown a pan each of echinacea, aquilegias and the old faithful tagetes and rudbeckias.  Are seed merchants getting stingy?  The sweet olive tomato seeds totalled six (two of which have so far failed to germinate), and the same supplier's echinacea ration was scarcely more generous at sixteen.  In contrast, I have enough saved rudeckia and tagetes seeds from last year to carpet the Home Counties.  I have sown one 5"x 3" pan of each.

I'd a visit yesterday to the local pesthouse for a routine examination, which again revealed nothing troublesome.  Finding a parking space took ages, so I was glad I'd left in good time.  Only to be kept waiting three quarters of an hour to be seen.  Still, the doctor was a friendly chap of Moçambican origins, so we exchanged a few words of Portuguese - when I didn't have a fibre optic down my throat, anyway.

The outside table has had its third and final coat (for this year) of Danish oil, so will return to duty soon. It remains under cover today, since there’s a forecast of heavy rain, and the clouds look as if they’re laden with Sahara sand!  

A curious postbag yesterday.  Southern Water advise that our monthly spend on water (in and out) is a little over £32, which we currently pay at six-monthly intervals.  They are now offering a monthly payment option, and suggest an amount of £62.  Hmmm….I think not, thank you very much.  Two letters arrived from financial institutions bearing code words for the beefed-up security of their on-line services. The one from a building society was dead easy to set up.  The one from a certain bank, namesake of the Paris underground railway, was characteristically unwieldy and bad for the blood pressure.  After I’d finally set things up and programmed a test payment to another bank, I had a text message asking me to phone them.  When I finally got through after ten minutes of distorted muzak, I had the usual inquisition: full name, DoB, address, postcode, where the account was opened, colour of grandmother’s eyes, inside leg measurement, and finally got the payment cleared.  It then took another ten minutes and two passings of the buck to get the answer to a simple question.  Snarl.

Focus local

It helps a little in these awful times to focus on things we can influence.  Yesterday I hauled up the last half dozen leeks from a rather frosty garden for a pot of leek and tattie soup - and the slicing thereof didn’t half make my eyes water!  This was in preparation for a visit from Pat, alias Miss, our former art tutor, to whom I’d promised some plants.  We’d a pleasant lunch together: the soup and some home-baked (just warm) rolls, plus the muffins Pat had brought with her.  She also brought some fuchsia cuttings which I’m instructed to nurture, and ten nice little primulas.  She went off with a dollop of iris sibirica, a few cornus cuttings and some penstemons that we’d brought on over the winter in the sitooterie.

The primulas are planted in a tub by the front door, and I’m nurturing the fuchsias as instructed.  Some years ago, Pat gave me a little layering of a sedum from her garden, and it has flourished, much to our delight and that of the local bees.  Today I’ve dug up a layering and planted it at the top of the garden.  All we need now is a beehive or two.  Unfortunately, our local beekeeper is also a leading light of UKIP, hence unlikely to feature on our Christmas card list.

There’s a lot on the garden agenda at the moment: spuds ready to plant, onion seedlings and sets to plant out, nicotianas to prick out and tagetes, rudbeckias and echinaceas to sow.  It’ll soon be time to hack down the penstemons: they respond very well to the treatment.  The roses are pruned and sprouting nicely, and most of the shrubs we put in past spring are coming along well.  The peony we planted last year sulked, but they are notoriously snotty about being moved.  Good to see some red shoots thereof coming up today.

Well, let’s hope we get to see the fruits of our labours before Putin vaporises us all.