Well the house is now officially warmed and life can start to return to normal. There are still one or two things to sort out. Do you remember the saga of the barrels from my Master and Mistress’s wedding several years ago? They were the ones that turned out to be bigger in real life than they had looked on the internet page and have proved a problem for transportation ever since. In fact the biggest of the barrels has never made it further than my maternal grandparents house and has yet to join us now we are back in England. Anyway, my Mistress tried to set the other two up so that they could be a water feature for yesterday. Sadly they haven’t had water in for a few weeks and have dried out. What that means is that the wood has shrunk and there is now a hole in the barrel. To be fair it isn’t so much one hole as a lot of holes and they don’t hold water awfully well. As if that isn’t problem enough, the pump mechanism works but the pipe that connects it to the waterfall bit has sheered off and so if you turn the water pump on, it cascades everywhere. There is not serious talk of the old barrels either being used as firewood or as plant pots and a new water feature being purchased. I suppose they are just trying to keep the rotten bird table company.
I am delighted to say that at last the fruit trees can be ordered. I have had to promise not to pee on them until they have become firmly established and although I do think the temptation will be great, I can see the benefit of their becoming bigger trees first. It is a pleasure I shall simply have to look forward to.