Someone said, kindly meant, that it must be quite relaxing to have the wife inForeign Parts for three weeks-do your own thing? Indeed. Doing my own thing consists of:
(a) Twice weekly clothes wash to coincide with the visits of our professional ironer. Timing crucial to ensure clothes are almost dry, but not quite, at 11 am on Mondays and Thursdays.
(b) thrice weekly shop confined to the one basket rule. This has to coincide with the Newspaper run on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. As Saturday morning is peak caravanner time this means a pre SF* start
(c) Daily bird feed-four course menu but the giant fat ball only on alternative days. They are not cheap and irrespective of size the p**king Starlings finish it off by 10am. Also involves cleaning out the bird bath including the artfully placed perching rocks and filling with grade 1 water.
(d) Daily tomato watch and watering. In the post Fish climate and with record temps as now this is twice a day at least. Also regular organic feeding with seaweed spray, evil smelling but chemical free tomato fattener and Epsom Salts to keep the leaves green and to protect the plants from indigestion, or something.
(e) Watering seeds until they are about 15 feet high. Doubly so in the present global warming period. This is quite fun with my hose attachment gizmo with several head functions: shower, Scotch Mist, Irish Mist (slightly wetter than SM) 4 prong spray, 6 prong spray, one great bloody jet, off. This means a thirty yard dash to the stand pipe whose pressure is so high that if it is not turned off when the gizmo is in the off position it will either force off the hose or expel the gizmo with the velocity of the Hutton Space Shuttle (under study by the HT2)
(f) Topping up pond-5 buckets a day. Removing pretty little weeds from the surface to ensuure right level of light penetration. Removing frogs from net used for above.
(g) Removing pretty little weeds from the patio. This is to avoid too much ground cover for marauding felines on bird hunts.
(h) Removing pretty little weeds, large clumps of grass and huge dandelions from the front drive.
(i) Removing and replacing cricket stumps and net to coincide with the visit every five days of our professional lawn cutter.
(j) Checking the Wife's e-mails twice daily and forwarding on to Foreign Parts to her more easily accessible mailbox. Sending e-mails to the wife's hostess asking her to urge the wife to read the e-mails.
(k) Following the wife's recipes-8 in all, in strict rotation. Extra shopping when not finding essential ingredients in expected places. I.e not finding essential ingredients. Temper tantrums on return from shopping with essential ingredients to find same in an unexpected places. Recipes based on Mr Slaters work Real Fast Food. An hour a day at least of my life gone on each occasion so I am avoiding the volume on' Leisurely Meals for the Terminally Bored'
Relaxing?
* Sparrow F**t ***
** ec
*** ar
