Sunday, May 28, 2006
Another week
Another week has passed with roughly one-sixteenth of the progress that I had anticipated and hoped for. Heavy rain for much of the weekend, and sickness in the distaff side of the family meant that the only major task achieved was cutting the grass - thank heaven for our sickle bar mower, which can cope with damp grass.
It's not all bad news of course - Oliver enjoys being out of town whatever the weather and is seemingly unfazed by rain. Rita went up mid week to check on our newest plants, and discovered that we had almost 100 percent survival. Less happily, she also discovered that our thieving friends had been in again. The house is now set up so that they can get in with brute force but without actually breaking anything - we have spent a fortune having window panes replaced. However, it seems that this is no longer enough of a challenge, so they also broke into our shed, which I thought was fairly secure. More work needed there. Little, if anything, of value is missing; although for reasons best known to themselves, they used my saw to cut off the handle of a garden fork, replacing the saw neatly on its hook. Rita called the police for what turned out to be the sixth time. The response was truly impressive - it seems that we must be affecting their ratings. The local PC turned up, then called for a scene-of-crime team, who came and lifted fingerprints, footprints, and even took cigarette butts for DNA analysis.
The only other event of interest was that four of the strawberry plants were under the plastic that they had previously been poking through. My first thought was that our friendly neighbourhood thieves had done it, but I swiftly realised this idea was quite paranoid - why would they do so little damage if that was on their minds. The strawberries are well sheltered from the wind, and I had trouble imagining what else could have happened. It was only as I was threading the plants back through their holes that the truth hit me. A mole had tried to stick its head up through the plastic - a move that must have confused the poor mole very much.
It's not all bad news of course - Oliver enjoys being out of town whatever the weather and is seemingly unfazed by rain. Rita went up mid week to check on our newest plants, and discovered that we had almost 100 percent survival. Less happily, she also discovered that our thieving friends had been in again. The house is now set up so that they can get in with brute force but without actually breaking anything - we have spent a fortune having window panes replaced. However, it seems that this is no longer enough of a challenge, so they also broke into our shed, which I thought was fairly secure. More work needed there. Little, if anything, of value is missing; although for reasons best known to themselves, they used my saw to cut off the handle of a garden fork, replacing the saw neatly on its hook. Rita called the police for what turned out to be the sixth time. The response was truly impressive - it seems that we must be affecting their ratings. The local PC turned up, then called for a scene-of-crime team, who came and lifted fingerprints, footprints, and even took cigarette butts for DNA analysis.
The only other event of interest was that four of the strawberry plants were under the plastic that they had previously been poking through. My first thought was that our friendly neighbourhood thieves had done it, but I swiftly realised this idea was quite paranoid - why would they do so little damage if that was on their minds. The strawberries are well sheltered from the wind, and I had trouble imagining what else could have happened. It was only as I was threading the plants back through their holes that the truth hit me. A mole had tried to stick its head up through the plastic - a move that must have confused the poor mole very much.
