Hi There Fraternity,
As I sat blissfully on a Sunday sunny morning having a coffee, enjoying the pleasures of being retired in the knowledge that from now on every day is a Sunday and life is so good in that it allows me to indulge in fantasies that conjure up images of messing about in my workshop to my heart’s content. But there is always an interruption to these thought processes that interrupts the mind and draws unwilling participants back to reality, with in my case the dulcet tones of my lifelong partner reaching into the recesses of my ears and soul.
I want a garden feature
A gnome I said
Yes
Thank god for that
Yes, a gnome with a fishing rod
Why would you want a fishing rod we don’t have a ........... my worst nightmare descended on me.
Yes, dear we don’t have a pond, but we soon will have. We will go to the garden centre tomorrow.
I’ll go I offered, save you the journey. No, you won’t, you will come back with a bucket.
God I’m doomed.
Ponds are hard labour, just digging and digging and more digging, then after you finally finish digging, you look behind you at the Mount Everest you have created, and as you stand there trying to comprehend how all that earth managed to come from that small hole and you start all over again,
And while you are waiting on the coronary to kick in your good wife is leisurely walking around the grave you have just dug to see the best spot for the frigging fisherman
Why have you stopped she asked? I am 67 years of age. I have pins and needles in one arm, a tightening of the chest and I can’t lift my arms above my waist. I’m just standing still until my body figures out whether to continue or take the legs from me.
That’s all very well dear, but you’re not getting any younger and that hole isn’t going to dig itself. Yes dear.
Kill me now.
Right lads as you can see from the enclosed photos this was not my first attempt at trying to induce a coronary, this is my wife’s third attempt.
The first was a Koi pond, which went quite well for a time, but we couldn’t keep up with the appetites of the herons in the area, so we filled it in and decided on water rafting instead. Unfortunately, my physics was not up to the challenge and you can see the remains of my pump catchment sump, which emptied before the water flowed back, disaster.
So, our little Oasis became a dry and dusty river bed for about a year, until my good wife decided to invite her friends over for a spot of fishing.
Bought a 150 litre Oase fibre glass Pond, which I hoped would suffice and completely stripped the whole pond area. I painted the waterways with a fibreglass fibre impregnated paint and finished it off with an Oase pebble matt for effect.
Around the top edge of the pond I purchased concrete garden edging which came in two-foot lengths and cut and bevelled them into approx. six-inch pieces and cemented them into place.
I then reinstated all the slate pieces, gluing all the sloping ones to stop them sliding into the rapids, replanted and added some pond plants.
The pond itself is not for fish only aquatic life, so no filters, just oxygenating plants
Last thing I did was re relocate my bird bath, it was originally on a pedestal that required filling up daily, and my visiting birds had no potty training, so quickly got rather mucky. I reinstalled it with a frog I caught in the garden and the birds seem to like it.
Only dilemma was the bridge. Originally built it for the previous heron feeding pond and we, I mean my wife has not decided whether it has to go.
Added one photo from a previous build and post. Decided to create an outside routing and sanding area under the car porch and that’s the first time used, works a treat and the difference in the cleanliness of the workshop is remarkable.
Well lads, that’s it, survived another attempt on my life. You never know what’s coming around the next corner. Speak of the devil, hello dear.
Yours
Colin
Scotland
As I sat blissfully on a Sunday sunny morning having a coffee, enjoying the pleasures of being retired in the knowledge that from now on every day is a Sunday and life is so good in that it allows me to indulge in fantasies that conjure up images of messing about in my workshop to my heart’s content. But there is always an interruption to these thought processes that interrupts the mind and draws unwilling participants back to reality, with in my case the dulcet tones of my lifelong partner reaching into the recesses of my ears and soul.
I want a garden feature
A gnome I said
Yes
Thank god for that
Yes, a gnome with a fishing rod
Why would you want a fishing rod we don’t have a ........... my worst nightmare descended on me.
Yes, dear we don’t have a pond, but we soon will have. We will go to the garden centre tomorrow.
I’ll go I offered, save you the journey. No, you won’t, you will come back with a bucket.
God I’m doomed.
Ponds are hard labour, just digging and digging and more digging, then after you finally finish digging, you look behind you at the Mount Everest you have created, and as you stand there trying to comprehend how all that earth managed to come from that small hole and you start all over again,
And while you are waiting on the coronary to kick in your good wife is leisurely walking around the grave you have just dug to see the best spot for the frigging fisherman
Why have you stopped she asked? I am 67 years of age. I have pins and needles in one arm, a tightening of the chest and I can’t lift my arms above my waist. I’m just standing still until my body figures out whether to continue or take the legs from me.
That’s all very well dear, but you’re not getting any younger and that hole isn’t going to dig itself. Yes dear.
Kill me now.
Right lads as you can see from the enclosed photos this was not my first attempt at trying to induce a coronary, this is my wife’s third attempt.
The first was a Koi pond, which went quite well for a time, but we couldn’t keep up with the appetites of the herons in the area, so we filled it in and decided on water rafting instead. Unfortunately, my physics was not up to the challenge and you can see the remains of my pump catchment sump, which emptied before the water flowed back, disaster.
So, our little Oasis became a dry and dusty river bed for about a year, until my good wife decided to invite her friends over for a spot of fishing.
Bought a 150 litre Oase fibre glass Pond, which I hoped would suffice and completely stripped the whole pond area. I painted the waterways with a fibreglass fibre impregnated paint and finished it off with an Oase pebble matt for effect.
Around the top edge of the pond I purchased concrete garden edging which came in two-foot lengths and cut and bevelled them into approx. six-inch pieces and cemented them into place.
I then reinstated all the slate pieces, gluing all the sloping ones to stop them sliding into the rapids, replanted and added some pond plants.
The pond itself is not for fish only aquatic life, so no filters, just oxygenating plants
Last thing I did was re relocate my bird bath, it was originally on a pedestal that required filling up daily, and my visiting birds had no potty training, so quickly got rather mucky. I reinstalled it with a frog I caught in the garden and the birds seem to like it.
Only dilemma was the bridge. Originally built it for the previous heron feeding pond and we, I mean my wife has not decided whether it has to go.
Added one photo from a previous build and post. Decided to create an outside routing and sanding area under the car porch and that’s the first time used, works a treat and the difference in the cleanliness of the workshop is remarkable.
Well lads, that’s it, survived another attempt on my life. You never know what’s coming around the next corner. Speak of the devil, hello dear.
Yours
Colin
Scotland
