Thursday 18 July 2013

The man shed, a trilogy....part 3

So we left the ~Insipid~ sorry I mean intrepid man of the 〰house〰 shed with a 3/4 complete greenhouse and a painted and partly shelved shed in the last blog, here is a progress update as I know you are all desperate to hear what dizzying heights we have aspired to.
I must start by pointing out that having moved from a flat with only a communal garden hubby had no gardening tools and as he always used the same excuse when asked to do any DIY in the house
'I don't have the tools love' It's reasonable to assume he had no tools of any description.
So problem number one was overcome by borrowing tools, 
for the garden obviously as that's far more important than carrying on with any works to be completed indoors, and in this weather? Perfect for gardening! 
We are now on garden fork number 3 (all borrowed I might add) 
Fork 1) went in the earth with four prongs and came back out with only three! 
Fork 2) went in the earth complete and came back out in two pieces, handle and prongs no longer friends with each other.
By now hubby's long suffering friends were beginning to wonder what he was doing to their tools to cause such devastation but like the good mates they are they continued lending him these fragile things and sat back and waited for the next mishap.
When he got his hands on his mates axe I feared the worst
 'it's ok it's just to chop off a few of these overhanging branches' he reassured me.
I watched from the safety of the living room window as he set to work, he seemed to examine the axe quite thoroughly before he started to hack away at a stubborn bit of bush,
 he aimed at it and took a hefty swing, it hit the branch and then both of us watched as a small black bit flew off the axe into the undergrowth, 
scratching his head hubby tracked it down, a small black rubber cover, obviously intended to protect the blade on the axe lay in his hand 
'oops, i wondered what that was, explains why it didn't seem to be cutting very well i suppose' were the words that came forth as he tried to see if it would still go back on the blade, it did but after being hit so hard it now had a cut through it where the blade rested, 
next to useless now......and useless wasn't moving any time soon!
AJ is a really good friend of ours (yes it is/was his axe) and has 'encouraged' Trevor to do a lot of the things that would still be 'pending' in the house and the garden.
When told about the axe incident he put his head in his hands and shook it gently as if he really couldn't believe anyone would try to use an axe with the safety cover still on it,
 however I am sure he was reassured when Trevor told him it was no longer a problem as the safety cover was on the missing list.
AJ says he enjoys coming here, it offers some light relief after a hard days work or at weekends and he always leaves with a smile on his face, usually put there by the latest of Trevor's escapades.
AJ is a motivator and he rarely leaves a job he starts unless its finished so as you can imagine he is a good fella to have around.
Outside the front of the house was a hedge that had been allowed to run riot and was half way down the lawn and taking over the wall to the detriment of the front window, it had to come out.
They both set to work on this hedge on a Sunday a few weeks back, 
unfortunately it was also hiding brambles and several rose bushes that had somehow entwined with the hedge so it was hard work but bit by bit they removed it, 
section by section I watched the brambles etc being dragged down the alleyway and out the back as the front got cleared.
I wasn't troubled as the branches were dragged through as I knew AJ was doing most of the work supervised (watched) by Trevor, 
I wasn't worried that is until I observed Trevor walk through the alleyway with a length of wire in his hand......
'Wheres that from?' I asked suspiciously 
'Its ok' he reassured me ' it's no longer in use, just as well as I cut through it with the shears, think it was the old tv Ariel' 
He was WRONG!! As we soon discovered when we lost our broadband connection!!
Ok I could be doing him an Injustice here as I can't prove it was his messing about out there or even that it was that particular wire that caused the problem with the broadband but strange how the BT engineer said his machine thingy was reading there was a 'break' in the wire somewhere close to the house eh???  

Trevor decided he wanted to grow tomatoes and runner beans in his greenhouse this year, too late apparently to plant a lot of things and the greenhouse won't really come into its own until next year but a few tomato plants and the runner beans his dad gave him would do to start this year.
So he went to a car boot sale to hunt down some tomato plants, alas to no avail as there wasn't one tomato plant to be seen there. 
He was hugely disappointed and everyone and his wife heard about it.
Consequently as he had made such a fuss he was bought 4 tomato plants by his daughter for Father's Day, 
AJ went to a boot sale and got him 4 tomato plants, another friend bought him a further 4 tomato plants......that will teach him to moan so loudly eh?
The runner beans started out well and he proudly built himself a frame with netting on it for them to climb up, very pleased with himself he planted out the baby plants at the foot of the frame.
It was that very same day that our young grandson came to visit, 
picking up the ball and with a whoop of delight he ran towards the newly planted runner beans shouting 'goal' as he aimed the ball at the netting. 
He managed another three shots before I stopped laughing and his grandad was trying to explain it wasn't a football net.

Well my friends that pretty much brings us up to date with the saga of the new house and garden, there are lots of things I could tell you about the long awaited progress on the house but that is for another blog another time.
Trevor is currently painting the slats that he is going to use to put up a picket fence to separate the general lawned (not yet) child friendly end of the garden from the greenhouse/man shed (his) end of the garden and I wait with interest to see how that pans out. 




1 comment:

Jane said...

'Step away from the tool, any tool' springs to mind. Sounds like a candidate for Some Mothers do 'ave em doesn't it? At least it is providing you with entertainment, albeit tinged with fear for what might happen next!
Keep you spirits up my friend any chance you can, a philosophy I'm trying to follow at all costs. The abyss is never far aware for us, we just have to keep trying to edge away from it!!