Saturday Sunshine

The warm weather continues. I took out Alfie a good deal later than I usually do, because Carol was fast asleep and I knew the moment I went near his lead he would start barking and wake her up. It was gone 9 o'clock when I eventually got him connected to his lead and outside, walking down the path towards the park. We actually did a couple of circuits, in an attempt to add more steps with the step counter.

When the landlord's wife came the other morning, she did mention the lawn. It's something of a running gag with us, because whenever we get the annual inspection, they always ask 'have you cut the grass?' Regardless of any other issue we might have with the house, such as the wonky floorboards on the landing, dripping taps and other plumbing, the garden fence (will we ever be reimbursed for the cost incurred for replacing some of the panels? I doubt it somehow.) So I felt duty bound to make some effort to cut the grass, even though most of it has been shrivelled by the heat of the sun. I did use the grass cutter and not the mower to cut the longest bits of grass and it now looks better than it was. The front 'lawn' now needs a trim, but it's not the grass that needs cutting as it is more or less shrivelled. There are some dandelion-type plants growing on this desert of dead grass, or perhaps they're coltsfoot. They are yellow and taking over this space.

We're slowly tidying the house. After all the effort I made to clean and tidy it a few weeks ago and then we didn't get an inspection, it needs more work to return it to a more pristine condition before the dreaded visit at around 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon (Sunday.)

All the gadgetry that requires charging is now charged. The grass trimmer, the G Tech vacuum cleaner and the G Tech hand-held cleaner. We seem to have more and more equipment which needs to be charged fully before use. Mobile phones, Kindle Fires, as well as these items. They need to be kept charted otherwise they're of absolutely no use if they're run down.

Visitors and Sunshine

Yesterday morning (Friday) Carol's friend Pauline visited. She's another science teacher and works with Carol in the science department at Milton Keynes Academy. She left to work at another school but returned to work at the Academy. She visited Carol several times when she was in hospital. She bought Carol a lovely present of Clarins moisture-rich body lotion. She was telling us about how the fish that lived in her pond in her garden have been eaten by some strange night visitor, possibly a heron. They found evidence of something that must have been the culprit, because remains of some of the fish were left beside the pond and there was a splashing about in the water at around 2 a.m. one night. Neither Pauline or her husband or son have found out what animal it was took the fish. Possibly a fox or even a heron.

It's been sunny for the last couple of days. I did two loads of washing and couldn't decide whether to put it out on the line in the garden, but put one load on the airer in the kitchen. The second load went out in the garden, at the time that Pauline arrived and it was virtually dry within two hours.

We'd contemplated whether we should buy a new mower, or perhaps a Strimmer. The grass has got so long that the mower would struggle to cut it as it's got too long, basically because of the 'on/off' weather, one day it rains, then it's sunny. It's absolutely hopeless trying to cut it when it's wet. It's hard work as it is. We then thought a Strimmer or at least one of these hand-held gadgets that has a spinning fishing line in it might perhaps be easier, and after it's cut down to a reasonable length, use the mower to cut it even shorter.We went to Bunnings (which used to be Homebase) at Winter Hill (where we bought some plant pots a few weeks ago.) We looked at several machines, including cordless models. We ended up buying one which doesn't use fishing line, but has a cutting blade similar to the Qualcast mower we already have. It's cordless and requires charging for about an hour, and, having put it together successfully, and waited for the battery to charge fully, gave it a try-out. It takes some getting used to, but it turns out to be far easier than at first thought, although I didn't manage to complete the whole area of grass (I still refuse to term it a 'lawn.') The machine cost a good deal more than we'd anticipated, but if it does it's job successfully it's worth it. It's an Ozito, a brand I've never heard of before. Because it's cordless, it means you don't have to bother with the confounded power cable, plugging it into the reel of cable, you just pick it up and carry it out and get on with the job and don't have to think about the cable getting in the way all the time.

From Bunnings we went to Morrisons, which is just over the road near the railway station. Carol was determined to get a coffee to drink. As Morrison's has a café it seemed reasonable to go there to have the aforementioned coffee. I sat at a table and Carol went to queue for the coffee. She'd wanted a latte but she soon returned to me at the table empty-handed. It turned out that she couldn't have the latte after all as the machine that made the drinks was out of order. We've been to Morrison's café before and there is always a problem, a long queue which takes ages to move, or they've run out of something or other. What is it with these places? Don't they want customers? All they are managing to do is annoy their prospective customers who will merely go elsewhere for refreshment.