After a very inauspicious start Monday’s weather improved considerably. First of all the drizzle dried up. Then by the time I had finished my Italian zoom conversation class the sun had actually come out. We went out for a walk up the hill in the late afternoon.
We took our waterproofs just in case and as we set off Phil picked up the secateurs. Last year, or maybe the year before, noticing that lots of brambles hanging over stone wall were just the right height to scratch our small granddaughter, he got into the habit of taking the secateurs in his pocket and removing any offending spiky growth along our way. Then there were the nettles, which grow in profusion around here. Certain trees also got the treatment. The small girl isn’t with us on walks quite so,often now as she has started school but the habit continues.
Recently we have set off walking several times only to realise a couple of hundred yards down the road that we have forgotten the secateurs. I have seen evidence when I have been out running though that someone else must have the same idea. Undergrowth that impedes progress along the footpaths has often been neatly cut back, not just snapped off.
Anyway, on Monday, in the late afternoon, we set off up the hill snipping and snapping - Phil snipping brambles and nettles and rowan tree branches and hawthorn bushes and me snapping pictures of impressive skies and fine upstanding foxgloves. There has been a very good crop of foxgloves this year!
Back at the house, as I pulled the blue recycling bin (paper and cardboard) up to the gate ready for Tuesday morning, Phil decided to have a go at the rose bush by the front door. As a rule that bit of the garden is my preserve. Phil does the grass-cutting and strims the edges and I keep the little front garden patch more or less under control. But on this occasion he decided that as he had the secateurs to hand, as it were, he would take a look at the rose bush, which hides the broadband cable.
Now, every time I have taken secateurs or shears into the front garden patch he has officiously reminded me to be careful of the broadband cable. Of course! But it’s very close to the wall, doesn’t tangle with the rose bush and I’m always super careful. The shears never go near that bit of the flowerbeds. They are reserved for keeping the central bush under control so that it take over the whole patch.
Now that the aquilegia flowers have largely gone to seed the patch has admittedly been looking a bit scruffy. The roses, however, have been excellent this year. Maybe the fairly radical pruning I gave them last autumn spurred them on to do better. I’ve been dead-heading them but, yes, they were getting a little straggly. I’ve been waiting for the right kind of weather, and a lull in my other activities, to get out there and scatter the aquilegia and poppy seed pods around ready for next year and generally tidy things up
So Phil was there, messing around the rose bush with secateurs. As I pulled the blue bin across the side garden I heard an “oh!”. I assumed he had chopped off a still nicely flowering bit of the rose bush by mistake. But no! The “oh!” was followed by, “I just cut the broadband cable”. I hoped he was joking. I went to look. Yes, indeed, he had cut the cable and quite close to the wall at that!
I went indoors to get food ready. Phil punished the rose bush by cutting it right back! Before going to the kitchen I stopped to post some photos to Facebook. My phone helpfully informed me that the house internet connection appeared not to be working. Did I want to use my phone’s own connection? Yes please!
In the meantime there was no broadband, no computer, no Netflix. It’s a good job the latest translation job had been completed and sent off. Phil spent rather a long time phoning BT and being passed from one department to another. They told him at last that they would send some kind of device to reconnect us and eventually an engineer to fix the cable.
So we were up earlier than usual this morning to await delivery of the device. Still not there by late morning! But not long after I typed those last words there came a knock at door: an engineer! Such speedy service impressed me greatly!
Life goes on stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment