Category Archives: Life

Gardens and Decks and Saws Oh My!

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The people who built the deck at the rear of our house used regular wood (not treated) and regular screws (not the kind of things you should be using  outdoors), and so slowly the deck has rotted away.  We got a quote a few days ago for someone to take it away and replace it – £2600 or there-abouts – which is well out of our price range.

We knew there was a concrete patio under the deck, so rather than not be able to go out at all, we decided to get rid of the deck ourselves.

I thought I’d put up some pictures showing the history of our garden, including the start of the deck removal process.  You can check them out on Picasa over here.  I took up the first batch of planks using a regular hand saw, but man that was a lot of effort, so we popped out and bought a power saw.  That made it more – exciting – certainly.

I won’t tell you in full detail how we got the rails around the top of the decking down because it’ll only scare you as much as it scared me.

So much for me deciding I was going to have a lazy day playing Lord of the Rings, apparently I won’t let myself be lazy at the moment.

From The Garden

Sun worshipping cats

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Sun worshipBubbles (our older cat) loves the sun.  She’s got really thick fur but doesn’t let that stop her baking herself as often as she can.  The deck is a real sun trap and as soon as the sun starts hitting it she’s out there, absorbing the rays.  Sometimes she looks aware, sometimes she sits around and sometimes, she just flakes out.  Fizz is the black cat in this picture, I think she’s making sure Bubbles (the ginger one) is ok.  Click the picture for the full size version.

We’ve had loads of sun this weekend, and the cats always keep us company when we’re in the garden doing anything – so Bubbles has been really happy – but this shot just sums her up during the summer.

A day of stuff

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My advice is look away now if you’re not interested in reading the litany of DIY / Gardening activities that made up our weekend.  I’ll even put a cut in for you so you don’t accidentally see boring photo’s of flowers, painted walls, borders and coat hooks.

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Gardening

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Grete removed all the dead / overgrown / weird / scary plants out of the little strip of soil in front of the window in the front garden last week.  It sort of looked a lot tidier and then it suddenly looked a lot like it was empty so we popped into B&Q today and got some plants (not many).  We got a few more bags of ground covering bark for the back garden borders as well to keep the weeds down.  We bought short plants which will hopefully spread and cover the soil surface and flower during spring and early summer, assuming they survive long enough.

Here’s how it looked after being emptied –

Emptied!

And here’s how it looks now with the few plants in it –

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Itchy ears and 6-inch scratches

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Fizz, the younger of our two cats, gets itchy ears.  The vet gave us a bottle of gunk to squirt into them once a week which clears out any debris and alleviates the issue.  We tried last night to inject said gunk into her ears – as you can imagine she’s not really very appreciative at the time.  I don’t think it hurts and I’m pretty sure it’s not even that uncomfortable, but if you have to hold a cat down they just assume whatever you’re doing is bad for them.  Which I guess is a pretty good assumption.  We were on the sofa, fizz between us and Grete was holding her down.  I got some gunk in one ear but the little blighter is bloody strong and she squirmed out from Grete’s grip.

In order to get some purchase and get herself off the sofa she used her back feet, claws out, and my body as a launch pad.  So now I sport a pair of nice 6-inch scratches down my left side.

We managed to wrestle her back onto the sofa and do the other ear, and she then spent two hours sulking while we watched Quantum of Solace, before finally deciding we were done and allowing us to pet her again.  Of course, she shredded Grete’s arm after the second squirt of gunk, because she doesn’t like to show any favouritism.

It’s interesting to me how different cats deal with this stuff in different ways – I guess some people just see animals as animals and when you discuss personality they shake their heads and roll their eys.  But if you’ve owned pets or been in contact with animals for a while it’s completely obvious they have a personality of their own.  Bubbles puts up a fight, but once she’s grabbed she sort of just accepts whatever you’re doing in the hope it finishes as quickly as possible, however it takes her about a day to forgive you.  Fizz never gives up – she’s always fighting – and she’s built like a small dog, all muscle and anger, but she’s pretty much over the whole thing in an hour or so.

Oh and don’t tell Grete I’m blogging about the cats, I try and maintain and air of disinterest.  Thanks 😉

Wow that’s a long one

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Long day at work, made longer due to the nature of the meetings and the fact I had to get the bus home out of the city centre.  Not a bad bus journey when all said and done, and although it started too warm (due to a lovely spring day) they turned the air con on half way home so it wasn’t too bad in the end.  Yep, air con, on a bus.  Ages since I travelled that route – they’ve knocked down a whole swathe of buildings near Beeston bus station which I assume they’re going to turn into houses / flats they can’t sell during a recession.

I used to get three buses to work (when I was er, 22) and I survived that, but I’ve gotten lazy.

Blogging from the car

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Thought I’d see if you can use the wordpress app to write posts off-line and what do you know, you can. We’re just on our way to weekly d&d (4th ed.) and the m1 north bound was slow bit it’s cleared up now. My fighter made it to level 5 last time we played but various events transpired against us and it’s been a few weeks since we got together.

Probably a lot of downtime things in this session, dead companion to replace, gear to restock etc.

Guests!

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Nice visit from a couple of friends on their way south from a few days on vacation.  Was really nice seeing them both even if I had to be rude and half-work while they were here.  They seem to have brought a change in weather with them – was overcast until they arrived and now it’s sunny and hot!

Can’t complain – fingers crossed it lasts the weekend we might get some more garden stuff done.

It’s spring

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I’m back at work after a two week break which means less energy to post stuff, although my posting rate dropped dramatically during February / March anyway (yay, I hear some of you say).  We’ll see if it picks up, I don’t consciously do anything about it, just sometimes I feel like talking more than other times.

Got myself an iPhone for my birthday, and it’s pretty cool.  Clearly I don’t  need one, no one rings my mobile anyway, and I don’t make any calls usually from a mobile, but I love the other features and I feel like I should be one of the people using mobile internet even if I really have no use for it.  I promised myself if I got one (or an iPod touch, was a close race), I’d do more walking at work again and use the iPod stuff.  So been out both days back so far, the fact that the weather is gorgeous helps obviously.

So clearly spring out there today – green buds at the end of every tree branch and a lot of insect life making an appearance.  The last time I walked and listened to music at the same time was around 1992 when I lived in Sheffield and worked in Rotherham.  I used to walk to Jack’s house through a park in Sheffield, early in the morning, to get a lift to work.  Since I basically stopped collecting any music at that point in my life the stuff on my iPhone is from the same era (a lot of Queen, Eurythmics, INXS, Paul Simon) and in combination with the weather it really invokes memories of those (mostly good) times in Sheffield.

It certainly makes going for a walk a lot easier, I was actually looking forward to it today – yes Grete, you can say you told me so.