House

Some Sunday Musings

~ beetleypete ~ 66 Comments

Unlike my frequent ‘Thinking Aloud On A Sunday’ posts, this is more by way of a collection of things I have been thinking about over the past week.

I have had to face the fact that I can no longer do many jobs around the house and garden. What with Vertigo, muscle weakness caused by Statins destroying my arm muscles, and the general onset of old age, I have let things go, to say the least.

I finally bit the bullet, and arranged for contractors to come and give estimates for clearing the shabby front driveway, and relaying the gravel that once covered the car parking area. With space to park up to four cars, depending how big they are, this is a considerable job. When I look back at old photos taken when I was regularly weeding and tidying the area, I hate that it now looks like nobody has bothered for a few years.

The first man who came was very local, living just a few streets away. He gave a fair price, and offered to start very soon. But when he was contacted to accept the quote, he wanted half the money up front.

This is a warning flag for home owners. NEVER pay any money up front for any work on your property, especially to someone you have never met before. He was told “Thanks but no thanks”, and the second man was contacted.

Fortunately, he was completely professional, and our attitude to him was helped by the fact that he had done some garden landscaping work for a neighbour earlier this year. Not only did he provide a fair (albeit more expensive) quote, he made us feel very confident with his grasp of what was required. In addition, his company can tackle other jobs we need doing next year, like sorting out the wonky patio at the back, fixing a fence and gate, and paving over some parts of the lawn.

Hopefully, we should have a fresh and smart driveway before Christmas, and arrangements in place to have the back garden sorted next Spring.

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A few houses in the village already have Christmas lights illuminated on their houses. Is it just me, or are people celebrating things earlier and earlier every year? We haven’t even got past Halloween, and some are beginning to celebrate Christmas in late October. My own opinion is that this actually diminishes the traditional enjoyment of any celebratory festivities, and I fully expect to be seeing Christmas lights in August soon.

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It has been nice to see Ollie chasing deer again this week. As he has been getting old so visibly, and not enjoying very long walks anymore, his sudden bursts of enthusiasm to chase random deer in the woodland are a delight. Of course, he has no hope of catching them, and he pays for it later with much longer sleeps, and stiff front legs by late evening. But I want him to enjoy life, even though he really is too old for such hunting exploits.

Sometimes, I think about life without Ollie, if he goes before me. I try to cut those thoughts short, as life without my constant companion and best friend is not something I enjoy contemplating.

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Covid-19 is still very much in the news. Despite all the government self-congratulation, infections are back on the rise, and deaths attributed to the virus account for around 100 reported every day. That means that 3,100 people in England will have died of Covid-19 by the end of October. Imagine the catastrophic impact on all those families.

Yet more and more people refuse to be vaccinated, and continue to assert that it is all just a conspiracy.

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Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

Best wishes, Pete.

Spider Night

~ beetleypete ~ 63 Comments

Tonight was Friday night. But in this house, it turned into ‘Spider Night’.

It has been a nice day, warm and sunny. Windows had been open, so too the kitchen door leading out to the garden. We live in a country village, surrounded by fields, farms, and a nature reserve all within sight from the end of the street. We should expect outdoor things to occasionally intrude inside our home.

Relaxing on the sofa after dinner, we were watching TV when my wife shouted and moved so quickly, I thought she had been stung by a wasp. But no. She had seen a spider run from the corner of the room behind her, scuttling under the large wooden unit that the TV sits on.

She described it as a ‘big one, the black kind’. We get quite a lot of spiders in the house. Most have small round bodies, and spindly legs. In the shed or garage outside, I have often seen the larger black ones she referred to, but they are rare inside. If in range, they are always killed, usually just by an instinctive reaction to stamp on them, or hit them with something without even thinking about it.

We are not kind to spiders, I confess.

However, this was the most athletic of spiders, running fast ennough to set a new 100 metres Olympic record. It was not going to be caught. And by hiding under a unit too heavy to comfortably move, it had guaranteed it would not be disturbed until it chose to reappear.

For my wife, that was the end of her relaxing evening. She sould not rest, fearful it would suddenly come running out again. Even worse, that it might navigate the room unseen, and secrete itself in the bedroom, ready to drop onto her face as she slept, of hide under the duvet before she slid under it to sleep.

I am not that fond of spiders, but she has a morbid fear of them.

A cursory examination behind the TV did not reveal the arachnid. It was probably busy nesting underneath somewhere, or looking for something to pounce on and eat. Resorting to illuminating the gap below the unit with a torch didn’t help, as there was no sign of it. That led her to conclude that it could now be anywhere in the house, which left her edgy and panciky about where it could be.

It is now 11:30 pm, and it still hasn’t shown up. I am going to bed soon, but I suspect she will be sitting up all night on the sofa, with the lights on.

No point telling her that it is much more scared of us, than we should be of it.

Home Improvements

~ beetleypete ~ 16 Comments

I am reblogging one of my earliest ever blog posts here. It has hardly been seen by anyone, since 2012. It made me smile, as the jobs mentioned are either still waiting to be done, or have been done by someone else! 🙂

beetleypete

In the U.K., we know this as DIY (Do-it-yourself). I am not a person who has ever naturally taken to this concept. I did my job, and if I needed a plumber, I called someone who had chosen that job as their career. To go to work all day, get home late, and have two precious days off, only to spend all that free time working on my house, did just not compute in my brain. Besides, I had never learned those skills, I had been too busy pursuing my own chosen career.
My Dad had tried to teach me. When I was about 12 years old, he would have me holding car tools; strange spanners, grease guns, and other oily, hard objects. I had to pass him brushes as he hung wallpaper, stir paint, standby with the correct size screw, or hold a torch steady, whilst he was upside-down…

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Our Home In Beetley

~ beetleypete ~ 104 Comments

***All photos can be enlarged, by clicking on them***

After posting many photos of the places where I lived in London, it struck me that I should also show where I live now. There is only one residence to feature of course, so I have used more photos of the house. It is an unprepossessing brick-built detached bungalow, built in 1979. It was later extended at the back, in 1987.

Front of bungalow from across the road

As you can see, it has a separate garage, and enough space to park three cars inside the gates. The side view shows the front door alcove, and the climbing Hydrangea. The huge Oak tree visible behind the garage is in our back garden. It is estimated to be almost 280 years old.

Front door and side gate

The back view shows the kitchen extension, and the garden shed built onto the garage.

Back of the bungalow

The garden is a manageable size, and enough for us.

Back garden in Beetley

It is not a ‘pretty’ house. Neither is it a country cottage, or a typical village property found in similar villages all over the UK. It is part of a small estate, mostly built in the 1980s. But at each end of the road there are few houses to be seen, and you are immediately in the countryside.