I tested the friend's butt for leaks (why does this sound faintly wrong?) and discovered that the tap seal was brittle and leaked a bit but that when you turned it to face upwards, it stopped. This'll do, I thought.
I strapped the waterbutt onto my trusted handcart and trundled off down the road.
When I arrived at the plot, I was in for a shock. The moderate gales yesterday have lifted the tar felt off our shed roof and not only let water in but also exposed our inept carpentry to everyone. The two roof boards don't meet up at the gable (see previous post) and with the moisture are now beginning to sag.
I curse the stubby roof tacks that we were supplied with -- my fingernails are longer than these! OH, who has been in town, arrives on his bicycle and surveys the damage. "Nothing we can do about it now, without a hammer", he remarks. John from across the path is down the plot with his grandsons again and comes over to commiserate. He's very kind about our mishap and blames the shed company, who did after all deliver an incomplete unit: "You bought this thing to last, and then they do this to you."
OH and I are more sanguine. It was the cheapest wood shed outside of China, for its size. We could never have made a similar one out of scrapwood. We'll build several layers round it and reinforce the roof and lay new felt and hammer it down with proper tacks and tether the whole thing to a stake in the ground so it doesn't fly off in a real gale. Just not today.
The good news is that my guttering has been so successful that the water butt underneath it is three quarters full. OH and I position the third water butt and proudly fill it from the two existing ones. Then the sobering discovery: with the water pressure rising, the tap leak springs again, a tiny but persistent trickle. I could cry. Or destroy something. OH senses my waning energy levels and kindly says he'd bucket the water right back into the old containers.
I take myself off to do some weeding. Things don't improve. Today is Antagonise-Her Day, and even the weeds are playing. Because I secretly think that gloves are for wimps, I manage to prick myself on a thistle and then on some leylandii cuttings that I wanted to use as cloches for the strawbs and lettuces. OH notes the enraged screams from down the plot and decides that it's time for us to go home and have dinner.
One minor feat of engineering: the cheapcycled plastic-alu greenhouse fits neatly onto the handcart, and we manage to take it home that way.
OH clears a space on our south-facing wall. Good to see that done!
Hope that the frost that's predicted is not too harsh on our sprouting herbs (coriander, dill, all self-seeded) and our lettuce and strawberries. I've counted about 10 flowers that are already out.
Dinner is Recession Fritters (last year's tatties, last year's red onions (the very last ones), last year's frozen flat parsley, an old bread roll from earlier in the week, the donated courgettes), with the customary yoghurt-mayo-dill sauce, homemade plum jam and beer.
The only ingredient that we stubbornly include to remind ourselves that we do indeed live like kings is smoked salmon with lemon. Always.
No comments:
Post a Comment