Working in my garden ... and Max's ... and Sam's

So Bulb say they have switched me back to dual-rate tariff and will give me £30 compensation in return. I haven’t responded yet. I think £30 is a bit mean. I still feel grumpy with them and I’m minded to move supplier. I’ll have to compare prices carefully.

I could set myself up as a garden handyman. This week, I have been to Max’s on Wednesday and Sam’s yesterday doing jobs.

Max’s neighbour loves gardening but has a very small garden. Nevertheless, she has planted six silver birches and has a border with soil mounded against the fence between hers and his. This has rotted the bottom board and when she waters the border, water and soil run into his garden, across his path.

We have replaced the bottom board and I’ve treated the whole fence with wood preserver. It hadn’t been done for a while, so soaked up the preserver. I’ve got another third of the fence to do and also to tidy up his raised beds. That’s a job for next Wednesday. I also went for a long walk with Max, Alice and Ollie around Syston. Alice had not slept the night before and both Inna and Max were a little frazzled. Inna was out wheeling her around town when I arrived and then she fed her and handed over to Max and I for another walk and (hopefully) sleep. She did nod off after about 20 minutes, so we kept walking and then, when we got back, she stayed asleep in the pram.

I didn’t really get to see her as she was still asleep at 5pm when I left for home. I wasn’t going to risk waking her just to have a look!

Yesterday (Friday) I went to Sam’s in Soham to help him put a section of fence and a screen at the end of his garden. We got the job done and made nice work of it, too. It’s a small section right at the end of their garden just in one corner. The chain-link fence at the top of their wall is broken down and it looks as if people have been coming in.

A neighbour told Sam that someone had come through the garden and broken into houses at the side of his house. Apparently, this was when the previous owners had been there and they’d piled up old conifers in the corner. Sam has had those removed (we dug a lot of compost out to fill in the pond) so the corner is now accessible again.

We put in new fence posts, pulled up the old mesh fence that had been trodden down and added new wire above it, also bamboo screen so it’s harder to see in. I completed the security screen by adding a small holly seedling I found in the border. I suggested they add a new laurel, so the line of laurels goes all the way down the garden. We finished off by digging out some old, rotten compost bins and then making three new ones from some old pallets. Sam burned a load of old wood on a bonfire, so the bottom is much more tidy.

It’s a big garden and will take them a lot of time to look after. Sam has had three large yew trees removed, which makes the side of the house much lighter, and also the lime trees along the road pollarded. The laurels really need a good trim and Sam is having the lawn re-laid with turf in the next month. The old lawn was badly damaged by leaves being left lying on it and also by moss.

Saoirse, me and Arthur having dinner after working in the garden.

Arthur and Saoirse came home at about 5pm. They were very exited to see me and also the bonfire (probably the bonfire more than me). I had a little play with them and sat while they had dinner. It’s a long day at school/nursery for them both.

Arthur was very keen to show me his new bedroom. He’s obsessed with the army and soldiers at the moment and his bedroom has a camouflage theme. Saoirse is campaigning to have the same in hers.

It was quite a stormy day and we were lucky to get so much done between heavy rain showers. Driving home, Ely cathedral looked wonderful against the stormy sky and there were some wonderful cloud formations across the flat fens around Chatteris, Manea and March.

Bending the lockdown rules

 

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so grumpy. The man from British Gas (or rather a third-party plumbing company contracted by British Gas arrived and duly put in a new ballcock. Problem solved. Also, I managed to call Bulb to complain about the electric bill and I managed to get through after only about 10 minutes. The person in the call-centre seemed mildly interested in what I was saying and said she’d refer it to “the team”.

I don’t hold out much hope. I did have it confirmed that they’d switched my account to single rate, rather than a cheaper night rate, so I’m not happy. They have also put prices up this week!

Lockdown continues with a small easing of restrictions at the beginning of this month to allow children to go back to school and allow you to meet two people outdoors. I have been bending the rules (past breaking point) by going to see Max and Inna and taking Alice for a walk. Margaret won’t go with me.

People are breaking the rules right, left and centre, but I don’t think they’re all being reckless. I know only two or three of my friends who are sticking rigidly to the rules. Even Margaret (a stickler for rules) has bent them a little. It is hard. We’ve had massive restrictions placed on what we can do, who we can see and where we can go and people are a bit fed up with it. As more and more people are vaccinated (we had our first dose on February 10 of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine) they feel safer and more inclined to break the rules.

Well, it’s been nice to see Max and Inna and to meet Alice for the first time. I’ve seen all my other grandchildren within a few days, sometimes within hours, so this was very odd. It has been bad enough for us in lockdown, but for new parents it’s been an extra challenge in a challenging time. Alice seems quite a good baby and, although sleep deprivation has been an issue (of course) they are managing quite well. Max has about eight months work left on his PhD and Inna is due to go back to work in June.

Marina (Inna’s mum) will have Alice two days a week and Max will have her another two. I think Margaret and I will be able to help out too, but we’ll have to sort something nearer the time.

Arthur and Saoirse are staying with us this weekend. Lucy dropped them off after school/nursery last night. Arthur has thrived at school. He’s changed a lot and has learned lots since he started in September. Saoirse is a real charmer. She’s a very happy child, confident and talkative. She loves to jump off things. They woke up at 6am this morning. I’ll take them back to Soham on Sunday night.

A grumpy start to the year

It’s March and I’m feeling grumpy. The ball-cock in my cold-water header tank has failed and was pouring out last night. I’ve had to turn off the water and I’m waiting for a British Gas engineer (they run our plumbing cover).

On top of that, my electric bill jumped from £70 per month to £240 month in February (which was a milder month than December or January). I had a new smart-meter installed last year because I thought my old one was over-reading. My bills had gone down, but now this. Trying to get any sense out of a call-handler at Bulb will be next to impossible.

It’s surprising how a couple of relatively minor setbacks can make you feel miserable. I need to get things in perspective.

So what have I been up to this year? Due to Covid, a family Christmas was cancelled. We were not able to see Max, Inna and our new granddaughter Alice; or see Sam, Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse. Tom, of course, was in Ecuador. We did manage a Zoom meeting with Sam and Max and, later on, another with Tom, although the connection in Ambato wasn’t too good. It’s not the same as seeing everyone – obviously.

My sister came round for Christmas lunch, which was possible under the stricter regulations, so that was our Christmas. She had been hoping to see Alex and their plans for a weekend at one of the flats at Sutton Hoo was also scuppered. What wrecked Christmas? Was it the new Covid-19 variant that has proved far more virulent or was it more government incompetence in opening schools and universities with no management plan? Probably a combination of both and we now have three variants to worry about – Kent, South African and Brazilian. There are more, of course, and more will be spawned while infection rates remain so high.

I cannot believe how badly this has been handled by government and yet how unaccountable they remain. More than 125,000 people have died (within 28 days of contracting Covid) and yet the polls suggest people would still vote for them.

Tom arrived back in the UK on January 2, flying via Madrid on a packed plane. I went to pick him up. His return meant that we all had to self-isolate for 10 days, but within a couple of days, we heard that Carlos, Lucy’s dad, had tested positive for Covid and they’d all been together at Christmas. Tom had a Covid test and proved positive. Margaret and I had tests, which were negative, and we felt sort-of-all-right, although it’s hard to say you feel great when there’s a Covid case in the house. Tom was confined to his room and we faced an extended quarantine. Luckily, Tom had relatively mild symptoms. Carlos also recovered well. It had been a worry because his sister died from Covid last year.

Tom had come back to the UK and left Lucy, Julia, Aureliano and Florencia in Ecuador in order to try to get his business back up and running. It was a tough ask with lockdown rules tightening. He has managed to get a little work, including a couple of commercial jobs – filming “how-to” videos for fitting motorcycle accessories, also filming a local farmer’s cattle for an advert selling the beasts.