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August 25, 2003
A Near Miss
Well, did you miss me?
You nearly missed me permanently. Saturday we headed over to the local garden shop. What with it being spring and all we were getting ready to plant the garden. Actually the good bits have already been planted and we have lettuce ready to eat and probably have peas in a few weeks. The strawberry plants are flowering and lots of things (including weeds) are starting to appear. We all got our heads together and worked out what else we wanted to grow this year (cherry tomatoes, butternut pumpkin, etc) and then what we could do from seed and what required something a little better developed. We also took the chance to look at the options for doing something about the sandy slopes.
[Background Information (not generally relevant to this story): We live in a really old house that has a courtyard at the back. The back of the courtyard is about 4 foot above the ground level inside the courtyard. Either side of the courtyard are sandy slopes that run up to a strip along the back of the yard. This is primarily overgrown with weeds. Our intention is to terrace the wider side and grass or brick the sandy bits with a series of garden beds running up the slope. We have lots of sandstone lying around for the surface parts but we need something for the risers and the sandstone is not even enough.]
Got the plants back and set them out ready for Sunday or early next week. Watered the garden, picked a lettuce, killed some snails - all the usual stuff. Didn't go near the computer at all.
Sunday, we are due to visit Mum. The better half is going to learn how to repair old bound books and I am going to patch my brothers computer so he can play Europa Universalis II.
[Background: Cool game. After it crashed a few times, we started saving more often. Turns out the save file is amenable to a little perl hackery and it fact it is trivial to overcome the more annoying aspects of the game with a bit of patching.....]
I was still feeling a bit washed out from last week and the better half wasn't much brighter and we nearly called off the trip - 90 minutes each way (and that is using the motorway which is $2.20 each way). In the end we decided to go, packed up after mass, grabbed a Tiramisu from the local cake shop and a lettuce from the garden and hit the road. Had a great day (are you bored yet?) really. Book mending takes a long time and it was pretty late for the drive back (about 8 pm I think). Bundled the kids in the car, talked about the winds ... and the branches coming down ... and driving safely and ... left. Go home in good time and started inside with the first sleeping kiddie and the thoughts went like this ....
Watch the door... kick the shoes off... swing around... remember not to turn the light on yet... in the bedroom... hmmm, this room is cold... side of cot is down... this room is really cold... hey, there's a real draft here... the window isn't open because the blinds aren't moving... hey, there's a hole in the roof!
Yup, there were two holes actually. One in the youngest kiddies bedroom, the other in the playroom. There was also half the roof missing from the carport (which I hadn't noticed when I came in). You see the weather has been playing up a little. Check out these stories: here, here and here.
The best bit is still to come. The holes in the roof were where the skylights used to be. The back skylight had shattered in the garden, decapitating a dwarf orange tree and the herb garden. Sharp bits of perspex were in among the new plants we had just purchased. Had we decided to stay home, we would have been planting those things when the wind hit! Miracles do still happen!
Posted by Ozguru at August 25, 2003 08:08 PM
