What's another day?

Well, instead of starting work on the fence yesterday, Mr O’Reilly (name changed because I can’t remember his real one, but that’s more accurate than the genuine article) had telephoned (at 7.20am – eek!) to let us know his slabbing job had overrun and it would be today instead that he’d be round. Last night he duly turned up to unload fence posts and panels so he could make an early start. And he and his sidekick arrived at 8 this morning.

Now, you must understand that when MO’R came to estimate for the job we made several things very clear: one, that on no account did we want posts simply concreted into the ground because they always rot at ground level, the dogs put their paws against the fence to talk to the neighbours, the posts snap and the fence falls over. So he promised to concrete in ‘godfathers’ and bolt the posts to them. We also said that we wanted the posts all shifted along about 18 inches to have the awkward quarter-panel at the far end of the garden behind the compost heap rather than halfway along, and to make it easier I’d chopped back the hedge that was stopping the dogs getting over that low place. So when I looked out of the window after an hour or so I was surprised to see that the gap was still there and the new posts in the same place as the old posts – hmmm. On enquiry it seems that there’s too much concrete there to dig out (or something) so the panels can’t be shifted. So the hedge is now 18" too short and looks completely arse for no reason, and the dogs will be able to get over the top of the new quarter-panel that I hope he's going to refit. Drat.

My major Sybil Fawlty moment arrived when Ned, having gone out to ask them if they wanted a cup of coffee, returned to tell me that the new posts, 7 of them so far, were simply concreted in … I took a deep breath and went to discover why. “Oh dear, I forgot about the godfathers!” “As we explained to you, we think wood set in concrete is rubbish and it’s not suitable for this situation. So you’d better take out what you’ve done before they set, and go and get them and do it properly then, hadn’t you?”

He went.

They’ve managed to get about a third of the job done so far, and will return on Monday.

Apart from that, here are some things we’ve seen today when we’ve been out.


Toadstools 


Looking towards Brailes 


I love you, mum 


All roads lead to ... nowhere