Jim’s GSI Versus Jane’s DIY
30 April 2007
Jim had decided that it would be far easier to GSI (get someone in) to deal with our garden. I, however, decided that I could do the job just as well (if not better!). Well, the local gardener didn’t get back with his quote and so I won!
I did use his idea of planting laurel (Prunus laurocerasus Rotundifolia) hedging. As our garden is used as a mini Wembley they are sturdy enough to withstand the odd football or 10! As our main priority was to hide the boundary fence I chose some English ivy (Hedera helix), pyracanthea, which does well in shade and clematis as well as the laurels.
I know Jim’s concern was that we’d have to buy tools to get the job done, but infact all that was needed was a spade, which we already had and a garden sieve or riddle like this and lots of hard work!
All in all it took two weeks to dig the border, sieve out the builder’s rubble and then plant up, which was by far the most rewarding bit.
We are surrounded by not just an ugly, soon-to-be-hidden fence, but by many,many trees. The number of leaves we gather each autumn is enormous, so I have chosen evergreen trees and bushes for our garden. I simply can’t face gathering a single leaf more than I have to!
We have a composter like this one, but even so some days we step out of our door in to a couple of inches of leaves, which means we don’t have the space or capacity for composting them all.
After the hard work was done the gardener called in to apologise for not getting back to us. He did take a look at what had been achieved. I don’t know if he was being polite or not, but he did compliment us on how well we had done. The icing on the cake for me was the quote he had prepared, which was £800! All in all I think it cost us about £300 at the most.
The majority of our bugdet went on the laurels. We used an on line garden centre to deliver these as transporting them would have been impossible with the number and size we required. We also visited our local B & Q and bought some hostas, which were recommended for heavy clay soil and a few bedding plants to give us some immediate colour this summer. I had already some sweet pea, which I have planted against the fence again for some quick coverage and colour this year.
The washing machine broke itself
28 April 2007
Last week I woke to find the washing machine door had broken overnight. The glass was smashed and fell to the floor as I opened it to put the first load from the washing mountain that appears each day. No one knows how it happened, so I assume it was self inflicted by a machine that could take no more of my childrens’ clothing!
The machine was many years old and had had a good innings as they say, but I wasn’t ready for its demise just yet! I had washing to do for goodness sake and my blood pressure was rising at the thought of a few days without a fully functioning washing machine, so after the school run I began my research on my next purchase.
For the first time in a long time I found myself actually having to buy from a shop rather than on line simply because it would’ve meant waiting for a few days to get the machine delivered. If I had the luxury of time I’d have bought on line, which in a lot of cases is cheaper than buying in store and would’ve avoided Jim and I struggling to remove and dispose of the old one. Goodness, those things are heavy!
We settled on a Hotpoint Aquarius WF541G similar to this one and to be honest the old one breaking as it did was a bit of a godsend as this has a 6kg drum rather than 5kg like the old machine. It makes an enormous difference and to be honest I’m wondering if I should’ve got a 7kg drum! I know our old one was about 10 years old, but this machine is quieter and seems more effective.
Now how do I get the tumble dryer to ‘die’, so that I can get one to match the washer?
I know, I know …
27 April 2007
…. that blogging is supposed to be a daily occurrence and its been over a week since the “New Laptop” posting. I have no excuses but plenty of reasons why I have been dilatory. The main ones have been work, and the garden.
So to catch up quickly:
The HP Nx6325 laptop duly arrived on the Wednesday - it was up and running within the hour with all relevant software installed and was used on the Thursday for a presentation. It is sufficiently fast for my needs, incorporates a fingerprint reader which is fiddly to get working correctly but very impressive when you have and the only minor gripe is that the screen resolution is only 1024×768. You can get laptop’s with higher resolution screens but not at this price if you want it from a decent well known manufacturer.
The rest of the week came and went. Not much happened apart from the presentation on Thursday previously mentioned. Highlight of the weekend was a kids’ football match on the Sunday when what must constitute a “local derby” ended with a very rare win for us. You should have seen the celebrations that followed the final whistle.
New Laptop
17 April 2007
I have a couple of important business presentations coming up and I need a new laptop. The old one, an NEC Versa c160 is about 3 years old now and although it still works, it takes ages to boot up and, more importantly, the last time I used it for a presentation it failed to do as it was told and its behaviour was, frankly, somewhat embarrassing. I had needed to connect it to the client’s projector and also establish an internet connection as the demonstration was of an on-line project reporting tool that we were developing for collaborative use by a number of different sub contractors. I had intended to use the client’s internal network to connect to the internet but the IT Manager was away and I had forgotten that there was a very sophisticated proxy server in place that meant some setting up was required. As the local LAN wasn’t available I had attempted to use a GSM dial up via my Blackberry which normally works a treat. Try as I may I couldn’t connect and determined that the power drain caused by the simultaneous use of the external projector coupled with the USB2 connection required by the Blackberry was just too much for the old laptop to cope with. A new laptop has therefore been on the shopping list for a month or so now and today was the day to purchase. Read more
What a scorcher!
16 April 2007
Global warming or Climate Change if you prefer is a reality. We all know that because George Bush and his cronies have said so. If we had any doubt then the weekend will have dispelled it. Mid April and temperatures of 23% is unhreard of. Anyway the local gardener has let me down - no quote for the work - and Jane has decided that she is going to do the work herself. Fortunately she only decided this late on Sunday so the weekend was not spoilt by a serious bout of gardening. Instead we enjoyed some kids football, a long walk with the dog and on Sunday afternoon fired up the barbeque for the first time this year. The barbeque has seen better days and we are going to have to invest in a new one. I have in mind a gas barbeque something like this but we will have to have a trawl around to see what else is available.
