AN AXE, A FIRE AND SITTING IN THE RAIN

Hello there dear reader and welcome to another week at Chez Comb. It has been an interesting one, but then living with Spouse it always is! The weather has been glorious and we have started work on the re-design of our overgrown garden. We have been here almost a year now and Spouse has his big shed up and running, so I am hoping that this summer will see all his energies channelled into dismantling the old garden and re-building the new - along with my assistance of course.  We have been taking out long-dead trees and leggy old shrubs and so the executioner's axe has come into use again. Believe me dear reader, if you saw Spouse enthusiastically wielding a very large axe, you too would speak nicely to him - and so I did.

   That is until he almost knocked himself out with it and then I got very cross. I had suggested removing the old washing line and post as it is an unlovely sight in the garden, but Spouse disagreed and began working immediately beneath it, breaking up an old tree stump. Wouldn't you know it, he lifted the axe up preparatory to come crashing down on the stump and bounced off the washing line, braining himself with great force in the process. He yelped and staggered back with blood running down his forehead. Now he is sporting a lump the size of a large egg on his forehead and I have nobly resisted going down the 'I told you so' route.

   To distract him from his axeman activities, I suggested he had a bonfire later in the evening. At the bottom of the garden there is a large lawn much overgrown with buttercups and weeds and so I have been piling up all our chopped down bits of trees for burning on it (we've kept the trunks for the log burner next winter).  One simple bonfire would have been fine, but as you will know by now dear reader, Spouse never does anything by halves. Not content with getting that one going, he set fire to a large tree that he had spent all afternoon trying to dispose of. It was an old fir tree with many thick branches.  Dear reader you have never seen anything like it. Armageddon had come to Yorkshire. The flames and the billowing smoke from two simultaneous fires were an awesome sight to behold - with Spouse frantically running between the two of them to keep them under control. A long time later he staggered back to the house, hair and eyebrows singed and looking like he had spent a long shift down a coal mine. Maybe we'll leave the fire thing for a while and get back to the garden, perhaps a little gentle weeding as  (a) it isn't dangerous and (b) it won't upset the neighbours. 

   We haven't upset the neighbours but as you know from previous blogs dear reader, they do think we are slightly off the wall and possibly a little bizarre, (remember the chimney smoking episodes of a few weeks ago). After this week, it is now official - we are barking bonkers. How is this? Well,  we are having a new summer sitting room built on the back of the house The plumber is doing his plumbing and now the electricians want to do their electrics as in power points and T.V. point. And they need to know where we would like them siting. It would have been fine if they had wanted to know this week, as we have been sitting outside in the glorious evening sunshine in the half-built room. But no, they needed to know last week when the weather wasn't so good - in fact, it was awful - cold, misty and wet.

   So, what did we do? We got the sun chairs out and sat outside underneath our umbrellas in the rain, trying to decide where the furniture was going to go and where we would need sockets for lamps and a T.V. point.  Even now, a week later, on one side our neighbours avoid us altogether and on the other they scuttle away at our approach, shaking their heads in disbelief. Maybe one day I will get to explain things - but that is not looking likely any time soon.

   And now Sunday has come round again, the start of a whole new week. I hope it will be disaster free as we have friends visiting and I can do without Spouse sporting cuts, bruises or black eyes - he'll blame me, rolling those big, baby blues eyes of his and saying in a broken voice, 'if you only knew ...'  And they'll probably believe him!

   I hope you have a splendid week dear reader and that the sun shines on all of us. I hope to be here next week,  always providing that Spouse hasn't buried me under the new concrete floor about to go down in the garden .....