The ‘market economy’

This morning brings an email from EDF Energy, that ultra-efficient arm of the French state, saying that they will be debiting our account for over six months’ worth of juice in one go.  We would never have chosen EDF, which we suspect may be milking UK customers to subsidise its more regulated home market.  But EDF is where the regulator sent us when our previous supplier ceased trading.  On the advice of Money Saving Expert, I shut down the direct debit to the failed company, expecting the transfer to go through rapidly.  Ha!  Well, the huge bill is just for money we haven’t been spending for six months, but that together with the inflated Council tax bill exceeds our monthly budget for July.  Good job for us that we have sufficient headroom in the household account, but I fear for others who have been using the delayed billing to pay off other debts.  This is what privatisation does for you.  Fly-by-night retail suppliers, rocketing prices, utterly Delphic tariff structures that default to the most expensive price structure at the end of each supply contract: all this plus an ineffective regulatory environment that fails to act promptly when suppliers go tits-up.  Snarl over.

Meanwhile, back at the building site we’re still waiting for the new window to arrive.  But the walls and ceiling are plastered, the electrics and phone line are installed in the new study, and the radiator is on the wall but not yet in service.  The plumber advised us to get the system flushed before we use it - which is fine at this time of year (but another expense).  The carpet man is coming to measure up this evening so we hope it won’t be long before we can look for some muscle to bring the necessary furniture downstairs (that’s beyond us now, I’m afraid!) and get the room into use at last.

The garden is growing vigorously, and the first flush of roses has been impressive, notably from all but one of the new ones we planted following the garden works earlier this year.  The roses we transplanted seem reasonably happy too.  The climbing beans are doing well, despite the attentions of the mountaineering snails, and the potatoes are taking over the world.  Leeks are slowly fattening up, so should be useable come the winter.  The tomatoes are doing pretty well, and the fruit has begun to set.  I’ve got into a routine of early morning watering when the weather has been dry (so have had a bit of time off this week…).  Quite a few rudbeckias overwintered again, and we have planted dozens more, so though the buds haven’t yet opened, we should have plenty of yellow daisies well into the autumn.  Most of the seeded patches in the grass have filled out well thanks to the warmth of May and the deluges of June.  On fine days, the garden is a pleasant place to be - except that the unstoppable weeds keep us pretty busy.

This morning I’ve had a 40-mile round trip to have a couple of lumps examined with ultrasound.  They confirmed my GP’s diagnosis that there is nothing to worry about.  Quite a pretty drive along the leafy lanes of Kent, but I’m bound to wonder why there’s nothing on offer closer to home.  Last time I had such an examination, I only had a 30 mile round trip, but the radiographer was so bloody rude that I asked not to be referred there again.  When it was my turn a while back for the abdominal aortic aneurysm screening, it was done here in Disgustedville, and Martyn’s more recent one was at the same practice.  I’ve mentioned already the routine three-week waits for telephone appointments with the GP, and the lead time for x-rays - they used to be a matter of turning up unannounced with a referral form.  In another department I was told seven weeks ago to expect an appointment in four to six weeks.  Silence.  There is something definitely amiss with the NHS.  It can’t all be down to the ‘£#@“ing hopeless’, adulterous ex-minister, nor to the resourcing of the amazing vaccination campaign, which hereabouts seemed largely to be manned by army medics.  I sense a redisorganisation coming on.

Rain….

…..and not a moment too soon.  By yesterday, two out of three water butts were as near to empty as makes no difference, so I gave them their periodical hosing out.  Last night’s heavy rain would have filled them had I remembered to close the bloody spigots!  Still, a couple of hours’ heavy rain this morning filled the big one at the back door, which collects from the roof across the back of the house.

Today brought plasterers, who appear to have done a fine job, including correcting some awkward bits of woodwork and dry lining.  We were slightly startled on their arrival, one of them sporting tattoos to head and neck, and one or both of them reeking of clothes they had smoked in for several decades.  Good news is that they appear to have worked rapidly and well.  Not sure what comes next: we’re waiting for the window, decoration, plumbing to the new radiator, the electrics and telecoms stuff and the flooring.  Since the plaster has to dry, we think we may have a few quiet days.

In the garden, we have a couple of uninvited but welcome guests: a white foxglove in front of the garnet acer, and a probably bird-sown poppy at the side of the sitooterie: it is a bit of a cabbage in foliage, but has quite a lot of pink buds.  Of course, the weeds have loved the heat and rain of the past few days, so we shall not be retiring from gardening yet awhile.

Wildlife

Local wildlife much in evidence.  When I went out to water the geraniums this morning, I found the neighbours’ cat at the door, and shooed it away as usual.  I then noticed the rat it had cornered, and shut the door sharpish.  A little later, when I went to chat with a passing neighbour, I noticed that the box caterpillar has arrived, and is chomping its way rapidly through the front garden.  Debating with ourselves what to do.  We’d rather not use an insecticide, but we’d like to keep the box if we can: we have a whole lot of it.  There is a product that is supposed to be harmless to bees and birds.  That, together with a pheromone trap to show when the moths return and hence the need to re-treat, might give them a fighting chance.  Bugger.

Builders ctd. and more socialising.

The work is progressing at quite a rate.  The outer skin of the new front wall is built, the cloakroom fan has been moved to exhaust into the remaining garage, the wiring and boxes for the new socket outlets are in and the chaps are pressing on with making the suspended floor and filling in the doorway between the two garages.  They know how to work, these boys.  We got home this evening to find plasterboard in place on the ceiling, and the inner skin of the new wall in place.

We had a pleasant time yesterday morning when we visited Claire and Richard in the next town.  They are both on good form: Richard is doing some filming and photography for a nearby National Trust property, and Claire is putting the finishing touches to her MA dissertation in medieval culture and literature.  She got her place at Birkbeck despite my reference, and is finding her small group sociable and supportive, however virtually.  Their garden is mature, and like ours, a mixture of veggies and flowering subjects cheek by jowl.  It’s really good to make a modest start to our social life after so long.  It was also a pleasure to get away from the banging, drilling and dust for a couple of hours.

Out the back here, more and more roses are coming into flower.  New acquisitions are doing generally pretty well.  A few that we transplanted are also surviving, though some are more enthusiastic than others.  There are a few more candidates for transplanting when they go dormant later in the year, since they are overshadowed and starved of water and nutrients by the surviving leylandii.  A lot of the climbing beans are near the tops of their poles now, so we’re looking forward to watching them fill out.

More socialising today: we dropped in on Martyn’s sister to collect a gift that has to go back to that scrupulous taxpayer and compassionate employer, the generous Mr B(-z0s.  Good to see her again after so long.  While we were in the area, we dropped in on my former colleagues Angela and Bob on the other side of the river.  We had a good catch up, and were regaled with tea and cake, and a tour of their lovely garden.  A few years ago, Bob posted on Facebook a photo of a couple of rather tired boats he’d seen while walking the dog, beautifully composed and with interesting lighting.  I had a crack at it in acrylics, so it was obvious that I should inflict my offering on them.  I delivered it today, and they were very polite about it…

Builders

Hemen and his dad are here today, and have already dug the foundations for the wall where the new window will be.  They are well on the way to opening up the doorway to the hall, so you can imagine the sound effects: drills, angle grinders, much hammering and occasional Kurdish dialogue.

Just like the June day in 2008 when work started on the conservatory, it has poured with rain for much of the day, so I’m spared watering duties.  We got the last of the beans and rudbeckias planted yesterday, so they’ll be appreciating the rain.  Our gardening is somewhat random and whimsical: flowering shrubs cheek by jowl with leeks; rudbeckias and tagetes jostling with French beans. I also planted some flag irises yesterday afternoon.  They’re a subject I liked in the garden in Scotland, so I hope they’ll do well here too.  Next to the runner beans.

We had a caprese salad for lunch yesterday, with spinach and rocket from one of the raised beds.  The spuds are growing fast, and I’ll have to get compost for them tomorrow.  And we still appear to have three carrots.

Exercise

I joined a u3a walk round Tunbridge Wells this morning taking in the plaques on buildings where sundry notables had lived or visited: Lord Dowding, Queen Victoria, W M Thackeray, a notable high-class whore and many others.  Not on the list, a building opposite the Queen Victoria plaque carries a blue plaque on a modest house where Clarissa Jerome, Winston Churchill’s grandmother, once lived.  One plaque commemorates the factory where Subbuteo table football sets were made, so I permitted myself the job of explaining the name.  The inventor, one Peter Adolph, a resident of our village, wanted to brand the name Hobby.  This was ruled to be too generic, so he went for the Latin name of the hobby, winged variety.  One of the members of our little group was, in her student days, one of the home workers who hand painted the model footballers, at a thoroughly abusive piece rate.

I proceeded to bore further by telling them why certain motor cars have their names.  Mr Horch, after falling out with Auto Union, which by then owned the Horch brand name, decided to go Latin as well: his name, which means hearken or listen in English, is, of course, in Latin, Audi.  One in the eye for the extinct Auto Union, even if it’s now just a VW with attitude.

I gave up about two thirds of the way round when I still had a relatively level walk back to where I’d parked.  My worse knee has swelled up a bit, so I think Something Will Have To Be Done.  Still, the iPhone tells me I dun close to 6700 steps, 3.6km, so it can’t be that bad.

First flowers today on the iris sibirica.  And the first rose to flower is one one of the cream flowered mini roses we were given last Christmas.

Excitements for over-70s

Two lots of washing on the line by 08:00, and put away by 12:15.  Lidl, chemist and Post Office run done by 09:15.  Overflowing drain cleared of putrefying oak leaves from next door (snarl!) with the assistance of some plastic gloves from Fortnums’ bakery counter.  Shrub hydrangea pruned.  Don’t think I can handle much more of this excitement.

Martyn (though under 70) has designed and implemented yet another filter for the pond fountain, and planted some more beans.  I think he wins.