Wednesday 7 February 2007

....and then there were none (well almost)

For the past three days, two guys have been here felling the trees along the boundary between our houses and the farm field. They have been doing my bit for two of those. They couldn't have picked better weather, although it's been bloody freezing, the sun has shone constantly, and not a breath of wind. Well, I've been busy keeping them supplied with tea, and you couldn't wish to meet two more pleasant, intelligent and helpful blokes. What a refreshing change. It's a bit of a shock to the system now, I feel very exposed. Thank god the farmer did proper fencing along the field last year, else anything could get in the garden. It will be nice to have some sunshine all the year round anyway, and perhaps my garden won't be resembling a swamp for much of the year from now on, and maybe the side of my bungalow won't be damp either. (Well assuming we get sunshine of course) I just hope my aviary won't take too much of a battering when we get the strong southerlies, but actually, there isn't much difference to that bit of bank, it was pretty low anyway, and the two nice men have left my holly for me for the birdies to hide in, and also all my honeysuckle behind the aviary for the bees. They've lopped loads off the oak tree, as they are not allowed to actually fell this, it's protected apparently, but it won't be as bad, the sun only goes behind that quite late in the afternoon anyway. At least there won't be so many dead leaves to clear up from now on either. I have some sorting to do though, because the fence between me and my neighbour across the road is now futile, it was only the bushes holding it up really! My neighbour is moving out too, so not knowing who will be moving in, if they have a dog for instance, it would be able to come straight in to mine.

Well, haven't done much else this week (except be a tea-lady) but it did pay off, one of the guys climbed the tree and nearly killed himself to fix my nest box up for me when he saw me struggling with a ladder. It was already in one of the trees they chopped down, and when I looked in, there's a fresh little nest all done, awww, so I wanted to get it back up tonight incase they were using it for roosting. It's in the oak tree now instead of the one that was next to it. Oh, and he pruned my lilac bushes and budlea for me, which wasn't part of their contract. ;)

Well I hope we don't get the snow that's forecast for tonight, as I am needing to go shopping to Tesco tomorrow, so fingers crossed, else I wil have to get some veggies round the Spar shop for the guinea pigs.

Oh I can't let this post go without mentioned British Gas. They were due to come yesterday to change my electric pre-payment meter for a normal one. For the third time. Once again, it wasn't done. A guy came to say he couldn't do the job because they hadn't got any meters. A feeling of deja vue. So to cut a long story short, I have emailed British Gas with my opinion of them, their lousy company, and their lousy customer services, and told them to stick their electric where the sun don't shine! (Very painful I should imagine with all those volts..) I signed up with Powergen, who reckon it will save me about £100 a year on current prices, plus I got to speak to a human being instantly on a free phone number! And, you get Tesco Clubcard points with every pound you spend on the electric. Can't be bad (can it? ) I surely hope this time it will be third time lucky.

Trees before


















Trees now



2 comments:

nicola said...

Cool you got the extra work done jan! Bracing myself for the snow, send me yours too, then I might get a day off work!!

Boo said...

Good for you Jan, I bet you fluttered your eyelashes at them!

Don't forget you can order online at Tesco, not worth it unless it is a large amount though!