Mower RIP
Posted: Fri 22 May, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Green Garden Leave a comment »Longer-term readers may recall that back in August last year, we bought a second-hand ride-on mower from the friend of a friend. At the time this was A Good Thing, as it meant that a) we didn’t need to have the nice man mowing the lawn again this year (as in 2009) and b) that I wouldn’t have to slog my arse off mowing the entire bloody garden with the petrol-driven mower.
Over the winter, we got it serviced (supposedly- that’s a post for another day, I think) and the engine electrics repaired from where I knackered it when the battery fell off the back of the cunting thing, pulling various bits of connected enginery with it.
This year we tried starting it – nothing. The battery was flat, so that got charged up, having borrowed a battery charger from the out-laws. Once that was done, it ran. For about twenty minutes. It then went bang, chucked out a cloud of smoke, and wouldn’t start again.
Today, we got a different person to come out and have a look. Turns out the starter motor was fucked sticking , so he cleaned it out and lo, it started.
So I ran it round the garden again. Put it in gear to start mowing. And it went bang, chucked out a shitload of evil-smelling grey smoke, stopped, and wouldn’t start again.
So all told, I give up. The poxy thing’s knackered, and showing no signs of recovery. I think we’re just going to write it off as a total lemon, and one day get a new ride-on with a long fucking guarantee.
In the meantime, it’s back to the petrol-mower again. We spent £100 on that three years ago, and it’s never given us any serious hassle. Sure, it’s a pig to start the first time each year, but after that it runs just fine.
I’ve come to realise that I truly fucking hate garden machinery.
Forecaster
Posted: Thu 21 May, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Sweary Leave a comment »(via Sevitz)
Now this is how a weather forecast should be done.
When can we get the BBC weather to be like this?
Working From Home – Downside
Posted: Wed 20 May, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Own Business, Work-related 2 Comments »One of the downsides of working from home at the moment is things like this…
Problem exists between keyboard and computer
This is standard practice – although at least this time he wasn’t sleeping on the keyboard itself
The Shield – Finale
Posted: Tue 19 May, 2009 Filed under: Reviews(ish), Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve been watching the TV series The Shield since the first episode, and it’s always been stunning. It’s a lot darker than most TV series, and a lot more morally grey, based around the life of a corrupt police squad in a district of LA. The prime character, Vic Mackey, has throughout been juggling gangs and drug dealers with the needs of the police – including robbing the Albanian Mafia of $2m for the needs of his team and their families. You can begin to see what I mean about morally grey…
Anyway, this week was the final episode – it’s been going for seven seasons, and the writers decided to bring it to a proper close, rather than leaving things open to fate and falling viewing statistics.
And it was the right thing to do – the finale was just as stunning as the first episode, with everything being brought to a close. Mackey continued to be a scheming swine, and all the other stories came to a pretty satisfactory close too.
All told, yeah, I’m dead impressed. Might even consider getting the full seven-series box-set (once it’s come down in price a bit, anyway)
Wayfarer Software – Refund
Posted: Tue 19 May, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Driving, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from the farce at the start of the month where I needed to use the Wayfarer navigation software on my phone, I’ve been working on getting a refund out of Wayfarer for it, as I’ve no plans on ever using the poxy thing again.
Initially I’d emailed telling them why the Wayfarer Navigator software was so bad in the case of my phone (the consistent 400′ out in position being a pretty significant issue) and got a response telling me to check the GPS on the phone was on, and had located the satellites. (I managed to not send a rude response to that one, patronising thought it was) They also tried telling me to update the software – regardless of the fact I was already on the latest version. (and had said so in the initial emails)
They’ve tried getting out of it by claiming I should’ve asked for a refund within 14 days of buying the full version of the software. Considering I hadn’t used it at all ’til after the 14-day “deadline” had passed, I wasn’t going to stand for that one, and brought up the wonderful phrase “selling goods that are unfit for purpose”.
Another refusal to refund followed, which resulted in the invocation of the Great Old Ones: “Trading Standards” and (my favourite) “Goods of Unmerchantable Quality”
And Lo, today they’ve confirmed a full refund. Charitable of them, n’est ce pas?
More Garden Guff
Posted: Mon 18 May, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Green Garden, House Work Leave a comment »Yesterday was emphatically not a day of rest – primarily because we spent most of it in the garden. Again.
The first surprise came when I went up to let the chickens out in the morning – and found three peacocks (OK, technically one peacock and two peahens) in the chicken run. They quickly fluttered up on to the fence, and then next door, but returned a couple of times more before finally being scared off by Hound. There’s a colony of peacocks over by the church (probably half a mile from us) so it wasn’t a complete “Where the hell did they come from” moment, but it’s still the first time we’ve had them in our garden since we moved here.
From there we got a bundle of work done, including finishing filling the remaining three raised beds on the veg plot (using the best part of another ton of earth) and finally planting stuff in the bloody things. So we now have raised beds containing :
- Broad Beans
- Peas
- Strawberries
- Pumpkins
- Courgettes
In addition, scattered round the rest of the veg patch we’ve got :
- Raspberries (18 canes’ worth)
- Gooseberries (4 bushes)
- Blackberry (1 plant)
- Rhubarb (4 plants)
- Garlic (2 rows)
- Onions (3 rows – although they’re not doing much)
- Beetroot (1 row of white, 1 of red)
- Potatoes (3 buckets, two of which have so far been successful)
- Various herbs and odds-n-sods
Bear in mind, this is actually a reduced list from last year, due to us not actually managing much garden-wise last year. *ahem*
Anyway, with that little lot sorted, Herself also planted a bundle of stuff round the new pond (Hound was being a pain in the arse by this time, and got dragged indoors by Yours Truly) including foxgloves, lambs ears (it’s a plant, we’re not that cruel!), salvias, and other stuff I now can’t remember the name of.
Along the way there was also other bits and bobs, but it was a pretty busy day all told.
And that’s why I didn’t update yesterday…
Pond Life
Posted: Sat 16 May, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Green Garden 1 Comment »This morning, our lovely garden maintenance man came round, and we now have a small pond in the garden.
It’s been part of the plan for a while, but we hadn’t got round to getting it done. And now it is.
It’s not really planned to be a decorative/ornamental pond, more of a wild-life one, so we’ve had to think about the best ways to make it work. As it is, it’s got railway sleepers round the edges (which we’ll then probably cover with wire in order to stop Hound getting into it) with gaps so that animals can find their way in/out without too much hassle.
The main things we expect to use it will be the copious numbers of frogs and toads we’ve got in the area – I’d be very happy to have it get populated with frogspawn every year, but have no idea how long that may take – and possibly the odd hedgehog or whatever. That’s the plan, anyway.
Of course, now we also need to buy some plants to put in it – again, nothing massive, but enough to keep it oxygenated and clean. I don’t know whether we’ll bother with fish in it – we might, we might not.
But all the same, we now have a pond. That’s quite cool by any estimation.