A domestic life

If we discount the football, of which I shall say no more, it was a good weekend; a busy weekend, but nonetheless good for that.

On Saturday, after a lazy lie in, we had a late breakfast and then gritted our teeth to assemble the sofa that had arrived on Wednesday. Clearly a two person job, the decision to wait was a wise one (actually, one person could have done it, but there would have been much grimacing, swearing and other unsavoury things; particularly at the point the sofa had to be tipped upside down to attach the arms and stands).



Once assembled, the sofa was discovered to have magical Furtle-leeching properties and we were forced to wait an hour or so before disassembling the futon and transporting it to the study, where, reassembled, it makes the place look more den-like, though I am not sure that our measurements were quite right: if anyone comes to stay, we may have to twist it sideways to open it out as a bed, but this is a small inconvenience.

Of course, it wasn’t long before THE CAT discovered our new piece of furniture and he took to it immediately, after his initial appraisal. He already has a favoured spot, in the dip between two cushions and in fact he seems to have spent the night there last night, rather than hogging the middle of the bed, between us.

For the time being though, the sofa is not to be viewed in its brilliant red glory. We rapidly discovered that the mere act of the cat walking along the arm had caused a snag in the fabric, so it is, for the time, covered in a mishmash of rugs and blankets to protect it from predatory claws. It actually manages to look quite bohemian and not unattractive. I may take a photo and post it for posterity since it is only a temporary measure.

Saturday also saw some footling around in the garden, though not as much so as yesterday, when we took the rake and the hoe to the middle bed and removed the weeds that had gone from sparse to nascent jungle in the period of a week. Clearly watering it was a bad idea, though that was largely accidental – we have been testing the irrigation system: the bottom flower bed is much drier and akin to the Gobi, with rather less plant cover at the moment.

Anyway, we raked and hoed and plucked. We tidied up around the few plants we actually want to keep in there and soon the next round of planting will take place. We fiddled some more with the irrigation, which is plumbed directly into the outside tap at the moment. We had to take the regulators off, having neglected to do so before the winter and the ice has broken the seals and caused them to leak. Having obtained a new one (we need another), I discovered that we do not have the correct batteries in our stash, so that will have to wait. The upshot is that we overdid it a little and turned the middle flower bed into a muddy swamp, over watering it by some degrees of magnitude after we’d got the weeds out.

I managed to get stung on my finger doing the washing up. I have never seen a black wasp before (it turns out they are quite common and, ironically, not very aggressive) and failed to notice it sitting on the side of the sponge. The wasp was dispatched with due vigour and I sucked the venom out before it did anything other than leave a slight red mark, which has now gone anyway.

( Of course, I needed to rinse my mouth after doing so and luckily we had mouthwash available in the kitchen cupboard. )

A domestic life

If we discount the football, of which I shall say no more, it was a good weekend; a busy weekend, but nonetheless good for that.

On Saturday, after a lazy lie in, we had a late breakfast and then gritted our teeth to assemble the sofa that had arrived on Wednesday. Clearly a two person job, the decision to wait was a wise one (actually, one person could have done it, but there would have been much grimacing, swearing and other unsavoury things; particularly at the point the sofa had to be tipped upside down to attach the arms and stands).



Once assembled, the sofa was discovered to have magical Furtle-leeching properties and we were forced to wait an hour or so before disassembling the futon and transporting it to the study, where, reassembled, it makes the place look more den-like, though I am not sure that our measurements were quite right: if anyone comes to stay, we may have to twist it sideways to open it out as a bed, but this is a small inconvenience.

Of course, it wasn’t long before THE CAT discovered our new piece of furniture and he took to it immediately, after his initial appraisal. He already has a favoured spot, in the dip between two cushions and in fact he seems to have spent the night there last night, rather than hogging the middle of the bed, between us.

For the time being though, the sofa is not to be viewed in its brilliant red glory. We rapidly discovered that the mere act of the cat walking along the arm had caused a snag in the fabric, so it is, for the time, covered in a mishmash of rugs and blankets to protect it from predatory claws. It actually manages to look quite bohemian and not unattractive. I may take a photo and post it for posterity since it is only a temporary measure.

Saturday also saw some footling around in the garden, though not as much so as yesterday, when we took the rake and the hoe to the middle bed and removed the weeds that had gone from sparse to nascent jungle in the period of a week. Clearly watering it was a bad idea, though that was largely accidental – we have been testing the irrigation system: the bottom flower bed is much drier and akin to the Gobi, with rather less plant cover at the moment.

Anyway, we raked and hoed and plucked. We tidied up around the few plants we actually want to keep in there and soon the next round of planting will take place. We fiddled some more with the irrigation, which is plumbed directly into the outside tap at the moment. We had to take the regulators off, having neglected to do so before the winter and the ice has broken the seals and caused them to leak. Having obtained a new one (we need another), I discovered that we do not have the correct batteries in our stash, so that will have to wait. The upshot is that we overdid it a little and turned the middle flower bed into a muddy swamp, over watering it by some degrees of magnitude after we’d got the weeds out.

I managed to get stung on my finger doing the washing up. I have never seen a black wasp before (it turns out they are quite common and, ironically, not very aggressive) and failed to notice it sitting on the side of the sponge. The wasp was dispatched with due vigour and I sucked the venom out before it did anything other than leave a slight red mark, which has now gone anyway.

( Of course, I needed to rinse my mouth after doing so and luckily we had mouthwash available in the kitchen cupboard. )