Sunday 12 July 2020

Day 116

Day 116...

We had a fairly steady start to the day but were aware that others in the house were up and about before us which was unusual. We then found out why...Molly had discovered a wasp in her bed!!

First job of the day was to update my grocery online order as it is collect day tomorrow and then I had a few other online tasks to complete and orders to place. 

Then we decided to take advantage of the good weather and get some more gardening completed...but this wasn't our garden this was at Simon's mum's house. As his mum passed away at the end of last year we have been waiting for the right time to be able to get the house cleared and sorted through. Unfortunately one of the side effects of the Coronavirus has been a delay in getting paperwork sorted as well as being able to organise things like donating clothes and making trips to the local recycling centre.

So today's task was to dig out all the overgrown plants along with anything that looked untidy or we simply didn't like the look of and then lay weed control membrane so that we can keep on top of maintaining it going forward. We want to be able to lay some gravel or slate so that the garden looks smart and clean and is as low maintenance as we can make it.

Over the years about a third of the garden had been used for growing fruit like gooseberries and raspberries and as a result there was a low level fence constructed out of green wire, attached to three concrete posts of which each had a wooden fence post attached. We decided to get rid of the green wired fence which had been installed for plants to grow up which we (okay I say we but I actually mean Simon) managed quite easily; just a matter of cutting wire that was wrapped around the posts to loosen and then pull out of the ground. 

But this left the concrete posts with attached wooden fence posts still in the garden so Simon decided to see if he could get them out. Well the first one came out surprisingly well with a little brute force from Simon, after a few pulls back and forth we had one post dislodged from the ground and discovered that it had been set in bricks and concrete. We were both very impressed that Simon had been able to get this out with such relative ease! So Simon then set about getting post number two dislodged... unfortunately this one did not go quite so easily. In fact the concrete of the post began to disintegrate revealing the steel rods inside it but this meant that we simply couldn't get the post moved enough to dislodge it from the ground. Despite Simon's best efforts we had to call it a day and come home with a view to trying again tomorrow armed with a sledge hammer!

Although after about 4 hours hard work the garden is about three quarters done and looks so much better and much more neat and tidy. Hopefully we will be able to get the concrete post out tomorrow and lay the last piece of membrane to finish that section off.

We got home with about 15 minutes to spare before I jumped online to partake in the Disney Dream Girls now weekly Disney quiz. We had a great time as usual and for once the questions that I set weren't too difficult!

I was then just about to start cooking dinner and as I was tidying a few things up I noticed what I thought was a wasp flying around Molly's room. So as I am not great around wasps I called Simon to see if he could 'get it'. As it was it turned out to be just a fly which we managed to coax out of the window. But as Molly had had a wasp in her room that morning, and had found a few dead ones the day before, and we had had a wasps nest treated just outside her window about 10 days ago we decided to investigate the loft area above her room in case we had wasps making their way into the house. 

Well I say 'we' but I actually mean Simon...so up into the loft he went and initially couldn't see any signs of any wasps but then he noticed a couple of dead ones on the floor so we decided to use some wasp spray just in case there were any alive ones moving about. Simon then commented that he heard a buzzing sound near him but couldn't see anything so after spraying he quickly came down out of the loft and shut it up figuring the spray would be able to work it's magic. About two minutes later I heard Simon exclaim something along the lines of 'Oh boy that hurt I think I've been stung'...well the actual words spoken may have been a little stronger than that! But sure enough after quickly taking off his t-shirt there was a nice raised red lump appearing on the back of his neck; we can only assume that the buzzing he had heard in the loft was a wasp that was probably a bit on the drowsy side and had gotten inside his t-shirt and had then decided to sting him. Thankfully we could react quickly with some nice cold cloths to take the sting away and get the swelling down, but bless it must have took about 20 minutes before Simon could remove the cold cloths; I was constantly replacing one cloth with another to keep it as cold as possible to get the pain and swelling sorted.

And then just to add to the injuries from today...Simon managed to hit himself on the foot when trying to dislodge the concrete posts earlier and then this evening he cut his thumb open while cleaning glass out of some picture frames that we had found at his mum's house. I think he deserves to stop and put his feet up this evening if only to stop himself from getting hurt anymore.

A very productive day all round if a little accident prone!

Stay safe out there, wear a mask and keep your distance.
xx 





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