Landlord Arranges Visit and House-Cleaning

We had a call from our beloved landlord yesterday morning. He asked if he could visit. He didn't say what it was about. We said, could he come later in the week? He wanted to come that evening. Legally landlords have to give you 24-hour's notice. He's coming on Saturday afternoon. So we have spent most of today day cleaning the house. So most of the rooms are a good deal less dusty,  nd much more tidy etc etc. Floors mopped and carpets Hoovered. Our next goal was to tidy up the garden, to get rid of the weeds which have spring up outside the patio doors. They were beginning to get quite big, along with some rather insistent twiggy trees which have started to infiltrate the fence-line. So, having been stuck indoors again today, and after our cleaning duties, we needed a good excuse to walk to one of the near-by do-it-yourself stores in order to buy strip to go along the bath-edge (the edging strip we put on some while ago, infact it must be over a year ago when the landlord visited and is showing signs of coming adrift.) some dog mixer biscuit and gardening gloves as well as some sort of cutting instrument such as a lopper or pruner to deal with the saplings which I have already mentioned earlier.

Having walked to The Range along the Redway and past M.K.C.C. and then stopping to buy cans of drink in the forecourt of Wickes, where we had gone to search for the bath edging strip but not having any success in there finding it, decided to walk on to The Range further along the road within the Winterhill retail park. We were somewhat surprised to find it really busy considering that it's a Wednesday afternoon and the carpark is really full. We browsed the store and found the food for the dogs (actually cat food mixer, but don't tell either of the dogs that! Why is cat food generally cheaper than dog's? Never could fathom out why?) as well as two pairs of gardening gloves, one for myself and the other for Carol, which pair were quite colourful while mine were just dull and boring. Then gadget to generally deal with cutting the largest saplings that grow along the garden fence as well as some tiresome blackberry brambles which I found interfering with my mowing which I did early yesterday morning. Glad I did now as it would have had to be done with the landlord coming, although, to be honest, I don't suppose he will even notice the grass at back and front has been cut.

We were going to return home and had booked a taxi cab using my mobile phone (for all my annoyance by people using their mobiles inappropriately and the obsession that people have with the things, we couldn't have done without this gadget for this purpose over the last couple of weeks, as we've used it on several occasions to book cabs in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and to call the breakdown truck when we were stuck on the M1 with the broken-down car on Saturday afternoon.) when we saw our neighbours, Shelley and Gary, drive into the carpark as they'd come to buy curtains in The Range for their daughter who is currently on holiday in Great Yarmouth with her grandmother and Gary is decorating her bedroom as a surprise for when she gets home. So they said they'd give us a lift home so we cancelled the taxi. No sooner done than a cab turned up and we felt a bit guilty that we'd wasted the driver's time, but we had phoned to cancel it so they shouldn't have been so efficient in sending the cab so quickly. Then Gary said we needn't have bought the lopper as he had one in his garden shed we could borrow so I took it back and got a refund and we then got in their car and we were driven home. Gary had lent us the lopper as promised along with his Strimmer which should help us tidy up the rough grass around the edge of the garden. We started to cut back the brambles and to pull up the weeds and generally tidy up and I must say it's beginning to look a good deal better. Let's hope that our beloved landlord tells us that he's going to get the fence repaired as he'd more or less promised over a year ago as we are looking after his property for him and we've good tenants he can rely on. But something tells me this isn't going to happen. So we'll be left with a fence which isn't much use and will get blown down during the winter if we get another strong wind as we did when the fence the opposite side of the garden last winter when a large section got blown down.