mud, glorious mud

dear readers, it is hard to know where to start with this post. things have been hectic since i was last in touch.

in view of the fact that himself is about to go in for surgery, herself decided the time was right to re-make the garden and have laminate flooring put down in the living room. the flooring i can go along with. young dave has been somewhat leaky since he arrived and the carpet was very much the worse for wear. this wasn't helped by his habit of chewing the corners. presumably he didn't like the taste of the middle as this was where most of his accidents happened. as himself has to be careful about germs after he gets his new kidney, the carpet had to go.

but the garden? i suppose herself had a point in that if it wasn't done before the op it couldn't be done until the spring which would be too late for getting a lot of things planted. and i always like it when our builders are here as they are very careless about supervising their lunches. this time i liberated a sausage roll or two.

our builders are called mick and martin. they are brothers. with them come craig and mark. mark is a most unusual young man. he can ride a unicycle and has strange body piercings, including a sort of metal loop in the back of his neck, which i assume is for hanging him up at night.

the job the builders were doing in the garden involved building a deck across the end and building a raised bed to prevent young dave from digging up the vegetables before they are ready to eat. but first the shed had to go. mick lent herself a wonderful tool that she has coveted for a long time. it is called a sabre saw and is very scary. herself is unphased by power tools, and has a domestic use chainsaw certificate over her desk at work. but mick the builder drummed into her that this was a dangerous tool. so when the time came to take down the shed, herself was suitably careful.

however the main problem with herself's shed demolition technique was not so much the tool but the order of work. mick the builder had made it very clear that the roof had to come off first. but when the roof refused to budge, herself was so keen to get on with the sabre saw that she simply started on the sides. there is a fundamental principle in demolition that you should not demolish the bits that are holding up other bits. but somehow this had passed her by. it is not the first time that this has happened. it was not until two of the walls had gone and the roof was leaning at a rather rakish angle that the folly of the methodology dawned on her.

luckily it was at this moment that mick the builder phoned to arrange a delivery of timber. hearing the panic in herself's voice, he reassured her that if the shed would not come down willingly it might be more amenable to the attentions of proper builders and that she should not risk hospitalisation. even more luckily, the heavens opened and rain stopped play. herself retreated inside with the sabre saw.

anyway, the chaos is over. apart from the small matter of shifting a ton of gravel through the house that is. then there is the business of filling the raised bed with a couple of tons of topsoil. but the latter will have to wait until himself has recovered from his op, so we are probably looking at january now. i have to say i breathed a sigh of relief when i heard that. it is all rather stressful for a chap my age.

___________________

my boy came home yesterday with his own tale of mud. it seems that in pe his class were learning how to play rugby. this appeared to involve being made to roll around in the mud. my boy was not keen on this and spoke firmly to the pe teacher.

"i think you must have the sort of psychological defect that makes you like watching children rolling around in the mud!" he squawked, mid roll. when this had no impact on her, he tried another volley.

"its a wonder you aren't taking pictures!"

a career in diplomacy beckons...