Spring is sprung! Well for this week (give or take). At least 4 days of blue skies and sunshine, albeit with copious rain in between. Delia’s eyes have turned towards the garden and is off to a “garden centre”. Garden centres aren’t quite the same as the UK or perhaps Aus – they are a bit less commercial (not cheaper though!). Anyway, she’s off with a friend just now and I’m writing this.
As for me? I think I will fill in the exploratory hole I dug last summer to find a leak in our drainage system. That corner of the house has had a damp patch on the outside wall since shortly after we moved in and despite having found a couple of leaks, the damp persists. Its not causing any particular problems, except when we came to repoint that bit it was more crumbly than the rest. A friend pointed out that the top of the patch coincides with a rainwater recuperation diverter I put in. So thats gone now with the aid of two joiners and a stretch of pipe. However I am hoping that the washing machine overflow problem we solved a few weeks back was the cause. Unbeknownst to us the washing machine drain had been blocked and much water had been flowing down the inside back wall and going somewhere. Not sure how long that had been going on for, there was a solid slug of fat in its u-bend so perhaps its always drained like that (or since we moved in and started using the sink regularly (as opposed to like in a holiday home). These old houses are odd though, no damp course, just very thick (albeit double) stone walls with the gap filled with rubble. I do know that in the cave (basement) the back wall is below ground level and was certainly prone to damp (now skimmed with waterproof concrete so I do wonder what’s going on in the kitchen (which has no basement) as far as I know it seems to be bedrock underneath.
Anyway, the return of Spring (though snow is forecast for tomorrow!) certainly makes the walks with Siena nicer. Especially now that Delia has a new regime of brisk walking for at least 30 mins after lunch. She is using an app on her new smart phone – the first such phone in our household and now I read how the smart watch is already superceding it. Then I used to have a really cool digital calculator watch 40 years ago so whats new? At least I thought it was cool.
