The Cost of a £1 Bucket (by sarah)

One of Barbaras buckets had found its self lodged in the trout pond behind our house - how it got there is something of a debate. Barbara had asked Alaric to retrieve said bucket early afternoon yesterday whilst he was dealing with something on the van in preparation for us going to the bank, so he said he would putting it on his list of jobs to do that day.

Barbara went out for her meeting and due to work running late Al started his outside jobs after she'd left. These where mowing a section of lawn and retrieving the bucket. Dad asked if he needed any help and Al said it would be great if Dad could don the waders and retrieve the bucket. Then they noticed the bucket was no longer in the trout pond - obviously it had washed over the little water fall there and gone behind our house.

Normally such things get lodged in the weir but no bucket so dad began to wade upstream in search of the bucket. But alas, no sign of the bucket was there and just as he began routing around the bushes right by the water fall of the trout pond a swarm of insects started really attacking him but he tried to ignore them thinking the bucket must be stuck in the bushes. Anyway in trying to swat away the midges and fight the bush he accidentally knocked his glasses off of his face - splash.

Straight in the water - he spent about an hour and a half searching for them with a magnetic poky stick Al has. Dad needs glasses to drive and needs to get back to Essex by Thursday morning for a hospital appointment. This meant he was refusing to get out of the stream and eat his dinner - in the end I got in the stream to look for them and sent him inside.

I found bits of old barbed wire so rusted the barbs are no longer evident, bits of hinges, old nails, bits of very rusty squashed cylindrical metal, a galvanized steel sheet and a bracket but no glasses. To be fair on the magnet we have no idea what exactly the frames or screws where made out of so were sort of just hoping they were going to be magnetic.

Unfortunatley the cold water though it numbed my foot and acted like the cold treatment I've been doing to bring the bruise out did mean that I painfully collided with not only the bank of the stream down on the green house corner where it gets deep but also in the house when I first came in - mainly due to the fact my mother had moved our fold-up tables legs to get access to the window over the stream - she had put them across the path straight into the kitchen - I wasn't expecting them to be there and did not see them (I blame the stinking cold I have which is Jeans fault, which is dads fault, which is Mr Mike's fault which is Seb's fault and so on). Pain ouch - my poor right foot its really taking a bashing at the moment.

Anyway we had all just given up and retreated inside the house for warm drinks and Al had taken me upstairs to try and see if we could strap my ankle up but the bruising is just too bad for me to allow it too happen - it was at this point my art teacher walked in in his wellies saying he'd just trodden on his glasses (well actually he came to say he could pick me up and take me to my class as he turns out to be one of my neighbours but then he mentioned his glasses :/ ). He then had a drink with us and offered to look in the stream as well - so off he went wading through the stream in search of the glasses - at no point had anyone seen the bucket.

The art teacher left and then Barbara came home and I told her what had happened and then found out the missing bucket had been retrieved by her that afternoon because Al had taken too long over it and she considered it an urgent job. So the £1 bucket that cost a pair of glasses, my white trousers getting mucky, lots of time and one even more screwed up ankle was in fact not missing at all and already rescued rendering the whole fasade completely and utterly useless.

I knew it was going to be a bad day when one of the first things I did was hit my forehead on the corner of the old metal vice/clamp whilst trying to move a pot of paint. I blame the cold.

Trouble up Stream (by sarah)

The level of the stream has dramatically and drastically risen even though it is not raining - someone up stream is doing something something like opening the gates to an artificial lake or some other man made resevoir and they did not tell us. This happened once before when a dam to the fisher broke sending a surge of water down to us nocking Gilbert (Barbaras little boy statue) off his feet. This is a slower rise as in there isn't an obvious wave of water traveling down stream but never the less something is happening somewhere. The water is still rising and the poor guys who where fixing the tunnel have got water in their wellies and all sorts!

It has also proceeded to wash away all the work they had done yesturday and this morning which of course is bad news 🙁 The cement obvious needs time to dry and the such like - sigh sometimes I wonder if this is all ever going to be put right.

On the bright side however the skip has arrived for the removal of our kitchen and our plaster!! This has made me really happy as it feels like things are really moving this time.

Russet Apple Harvest (by sarah)

Last Sunday me and dad decided to start the russet apple harvest as Barbara had been asking for help with it and had already set up the dam in the stream to try and catch all the errant apples that fall due to the wind ect... For those that don't know the apple tree is on the other side of the stream just behind where the green house is (the green house is attatched to the building we live in (when its not flooded that is!).

The hard frosts have already reached our little valley so it is time for lots of things to be harvested at the moment!

We found a ladder and gingerlly made our way across to the otherside of the stream, we decided to jump it rather than use the ladder as a bridge as we noticed it had a rather large crack in it that would not take the strain but would be fine if the ladder were used as an actuall ladder. The back here was quiet slippery and muddy as Albert (Barbaras garderner) has been clearing it of all the scrubby grass in order to put more ornimental things there. But we made it over with no ill effects but than I realised that we had nothing to put the fruit in so had to recross the stream to get some bags!

When I returned Barbara has joined in the fun and was in the middle of donning wellies and get the 'cherry picker' now the only cherry pickers I've ever seen are those little crain things with a basket for humans that window cleaners sometimes use, I've also seen council employees use them to change light bulbs in displays in town centres and that type of thing - what Barbara came back with was something akin to what I would call a 'pruner' it was like a pair of shears on the end of a long poll with wires running down the poll so that you can move something your end and make the shears at the other end work!

Equiped with this dad scaled the ladder with much protest as a) he is scared of hieghts but was too proud to let me do it and b) there happens to be a couple of roses trained up the tree which did their best to scratch him to pieces!

Once in position I handed the cherry picker to him which he wedge by a joint in the trees branches and begain shaking. Nothing happened, no apples fell - all except one apple - which thanks to dads and mine combine bad luck feilds proceeded to hit him on the head! I'm afraid I couldn't stop laughing when I realised that the only apple to actually have fallen off the tree had managed to hit him right on the nogging!

Anyway with a bit of direction from Barbara he soon had the apples tumbling into the stream where they where neatly cuaght in Barbaras apple trap (an old wrought iron fire grate/basket thing with some chicken wire) where she was waiting eagily to extract them with a rake. I mean while I was creeping around the bank trying to retrieve all those that hadn't made it into the stream - I was trying to do this mid strokes so as not to be showered by apples. However dad decided that he needed to extract revenge for my laughter and shook knowing I was under the tree and then laughed like a drain when an apple ricochette off my back side into the water - Barbara then commented that at least that wouldnt hurt as much as one hitting you on the head :/

Anyway we got a good big basket full and the trees still laddened with fruit!

Daffodils (by sarah)

The finially Daffodiles have died in our garden - obviously at their hieght we had many different types - Barabara said she'd never seen so many of them in the garden before - I've missed a few types like the really fluffy dwarf ones but I photographed as many as possible - here they are:

Walnut Tree (by sarah)

I was going to writ a nice post about how well Jeans Walnut tree is doing, it was in budding nicely and looking really good so I thought - I must remember to take a phot of that for the blog - I went back the next day with the camera only to discover that the deer have munched it 🙁

So in hope that it can recover we fashioned a deer protector out of some chicken wire - as its actually two bits of chicken wire its not that sturdy and kept flopping over so we had to use one of the hooks for our garden lantens to keep it in place.

We're hoping its not too late :'(