HAPPY AS A SAND BOY

Hello my dear reader and welcome to another scorcher of a Sunday at Chez Comb I hope I find you well and in good heart. I am in good heart, if a little exasperated with spouse - but nothing new there then.

   We are planning a trip to Australia later in the year to see family out there and whilst spouse may coast along in our neck of the Yorkshire Wolds in togs that are, how shall I say, less than pristine, it was felt by the Management, (as in my good self) that a visit to the clothing emporium in York was required.  For once, spouse cautiously agreed, that maybe - just maybe - and he certainly wasn't committing to anything here - that maybe a new tog or two would be in order.

   However, I don't know if you have come across the expression dear reader, that people will always find time for the things they really want to do. Well that expression fits my dear spouse to a tee, especially when it comes to being dragged out on a clothes purchasing expedition and that is something he most definitely would not like to do.

   Bear with me dear reader we are going back in time here to when we lived on a smallholding high up in the Durham Dales. We found that the drainage system that took the water from off the fellside, around the back of the house and off to a soakaway down one of the fields had failed and our dining room walls were feeling the effects. Hope you followed all that, I may be asking questions later.

   We made this discovery at Christmastime and after the celebrations were past, spouse diligently set to work to dig out and remove the old pot drains and replace them with new plastic pipe work. Dirty work in the freezing cold of January and into February, so cold that a slug of whiskey was needed in his coffee at regular intervals to defrost him - so he claimed .... Dear reader, I cannot begin to count the number of man hours he spent keeping company with his drains, tweaking here, tweaking there to ensure the slope of them was exactly to his liking and the water would flow away like  a good 'un. and to boot, he was as happy as a pig in ... muck. I re-christened him 'drain man'.

   He has been 'drain man' in France, Scotland and Yorkshire. Last weekend he spent a very happy time sorting out our drain here in our North Yorkshire home and even had to go and purchase extra lengths of drain rods! No checking for the moths in his wallet on that day my  dear reader, he was off to the DIY store like the proverbial rat up a stick. 

   And now he is 'pond man' and certainly hasn't got time for all that clothes shopping nonsense. There is real work to be done and I can only blame myself for this state of affairs. In my infinite wisdom - yes, it really is infinite - I decided that we should have a large pond in our new Wolds garden. We had had a pond in our Scottish garden and I derived great pleasure and lots of writerly displacement activity from tending the vegetation in and around the pond and watching the birds bathing in it. So a pond there should be in our new garden. 

   We marked out where our pond was going to be and on a sunny August morning Brian arrived with his mini-digger and dug the hole to our design. But ... there is tweaking to be done and spouse is the man to do it. Before the pond liner can be put down, the pond sides have to be smoothed and the landing bays for the birds sorted out and the sand put down to cushion the new liner. And let's not go into barrowing soil around the rest of the garden to give us some semblance of a level playing field.

   'Pond man' is currently as happy as a sand boy - literally. He has two tons of sand to barrow into his new pit, aka our wannabee pond, and so my dear reader, how would you rate my chances of ever making it to the clothing emporium this side of our trip to Australia? Pretty low I would say. But on the other hand if he is occupied with this project and I have to go shopping for him on my own - now what might I come back with? He hasn't thought of that one. Wonder if he likes pink trousers and lemon shirts? Guess what dear reader, something tells me he just might not be too keen on those ideas, but they might work to get him out of the front door in case I do as threatened and do my worst.

   Hey ho, we shall see - either way he's not going to Australia in his much patched togs. I hope his psyche can stand the parting, I know I certainly can. It may be pink trousers and lemon coloured shirts if he doesn't get out of his sand pit soon.