Monthly Archives: February 2014

Another Fine Mess?

Ten tons of good stuff
Ten tons of good stuff

A day of comings and goings on Wednesday started with the OM expecting me to share the experience of going to order ten tons of manure from Dimmer.  I told him I was waiting in for the heating engineers to come and replace our Alpha Cooker, which had him nonplussed and he had to revise his plans.  After a long pause he concluded that he would be able to deliver the cheque himself to the manure-mongers.  An hour later we were the proud recipients of a large pile of well-rotted compost.

Next up was a lunch date at the Stag’s Head where we were joining Claire’s Dad’s 90th birthday celebrations.  With no sign of heating engineers, or our new stove, we  left a note for them to call us when they arrived.  Arriving at the pub to find no mobile reception, I was despatched home to change the note for the engineers to call the pub.

As I pulled out, the oil man arrived to fill our tank – which always pisses off car drivers who are looking to take a short cut along a our lane – it becomes a very long cut as they wait fro the tanker to finish.  We love it.  So, manure and oil in – just the cooker to come.

But still no Alpha  men.

Stan and Olly debating how to get it in
Stan and Olly debating how to get it in

Just after I had finished my attempt on some lasagne at the Stag’s Head (nicely defrosted and warmed through, though with such a lot of cheese on the top I thought they had left part of the packaging on), the Laurel and Hardy of the plumbing and heating world called.  I returned to make sure they had not been dismembered by our rampant guard dogs.  They were fine – and admitted that they had thought of calling us to say they were running late, but it slipped their minds.  With that piece of customer service to boost my confidence in their skills, it was back to the Stag’s to wade through my creme brulee – served in a chipped pot and, in proper mock gastro-pub style, completely ruined by chucking some raspberries in the bottom.

I picked the pips out of my teeth as Richard gave a thoughtful speech reflecting on his father’s principled approach to life (based on the cub scouts handbook), while the 90-year-old birthday boy addressed the throng in typically teasing fashion, thanking his whole family before – belatedly – acknowledging the support, selflessness and kindness of his wife (to ironic laughter).  I rushed back to find Stan and Olly trying to manhandle the ½ ton cast iron replacement cooker into the kitchen.  It was not easy.  Indeed, as Stan said to me “there’s been a bit of collateral damage” as he looked around a room that could have been a scene from the Syrian Government bombardment of Homs.

Not surprisingly they did not complete the job on Wednesday, and had to come back yesterday.  Of course they did not arrive till midday, as they had to get another job done first (Why, one might ask, is our job, the one you were supposed to finish yesterday, not your priority?).  Give them their due, when they finally finished the job, they kindly put back one of the kitchen units alongside the stove.  Shame they managed to rip three legs off it in doing so, which I had to extract, replace and put back in myself.  Farcical.

Anyway, it’s all better now.  Apart from the wall which had a round hole punched in it where they managed to push the door handle through it.  This was extended by Ella the lab who decided she would try to get as much insulation out of it.  But we do have a new (used) cooker, a full tank of oil and ten tons of high-grade compost waiting to be spread over the garden.

Look to Windward

Sunset over Somerset
Sunset over Somerset

It sounded like someone was throwing carpet tacks at the window, as another day dawned with more rain driven on high winds.  The arch outside the front door formed a wind tunnel that neither dog was prepared to risk.  A previous head of P.E. when asking if I was really planning to go ahead with a hockey match in some unpromising conditions said “I wouldn’t put a cat out in this”.  Not being a great cat lover, this is precisely the type of weather I would be happy to place a cat.  I’m a little easier on my dogs and let them off going out until the squall had passed.

But the forecasts continue with their storm-tossing, rain-drenching theme: weather systems lining up along the jet stream like a cyclonic taxi rank, waiting to drop more unwanted contents on to the sodden UK turf.  And Somerset has taken more than its fair share, as the news coverage has shown.

There is a sense of unreality when you see familiar places on the national news.  We are fortunate enough to be away from the affected areas, which are in a part of the county which has always had a reputation for being a little “special”.  The residents of the levels (Levellers?!) have suffered from an uncomplimentary reputation for being insular and different from the rest of us.  My youthful impressions were of a place with its own identity, fixed in my childish imagination as being full of basket weavers and peat cutters: the willows and the deep rich soil being the main natural resources.  I never did understand how somewhere that was partially below sea level could remain dry and imagined small children at Bridgewater standing with one of their twelve fingers in a dike.

The only effects we have suffered are a couple of inches of water in the OM’s cellar after the rain fell so fast it came through the walls of his basement.  Other than that, it is the usual towels on window sills to stop the leaking windows, but of no consequence when you see the sandbags on the levels.  When the sun sets in the west we can see the sun reflecting off the vast expanse of what is more like an inland sea.  Like a distant warning of global warming, one feels perhaps it is only a matter of time before we are living in a beach front property.

The news coverage has kept us intrigued and amused with Somerset being put on the map (just as it is being cartographically erased) as national TV fights to get the latest angle on submerged farmland.  The shrill call for dredging the rivers is no doubt justified, although as my osteopath pointed out to me while clicking my spine into shape, dredging merely provides a larger reservoir into which water can drain from the land.  It does not get into the sea any quicker, as it still has to get out the same sized river mouth.  But at least the water can sit in the river (and ditches for that matter) rather than on the land and in people’s front rooms.  But one can also assume that this winter’s rain would have caused flooding, whatever.  It is the “normal” years that one would expect to avoid the sight of tear-stained folk worrying about their livestock and possessions.

But judging by the accents of the interviewees, if nothing else the TV coverage has shown us that not all residents of the levels have twelve fingers and play the banjo. No, there are normal folk (incomers no doubt) down there, who drive Chelsea tractors and keep ponies for fun.

The distant glimmer of things to come?
The distant glimmer of things to come?