(Saturday, 18 April 2020 and Sunday, 19 April 2020)
Having failed to catch up with myself this week, I’ve decided to combine the weekend into one post. Not just that, but there were large parts of it that were deliciously lazy and whilst that is rather nice in its own way, it doesn’t give me so much to write about. Inane ramblings are one thing, but inane ramblings about watching the grass grow (literally!) are quite another! 🤨
Actually, the grass did grow… quite a lot! After many days of sunshine and warmth on the trot, the first of the rain showers came and I swear, you could actually see it growing! All of Mark’s hard work the other day making it look bowling green-esque have already largely disappeared. There are grass seed heads and daisies all over the lawn again.
Usually, at this time of year, we leave around a third of the lawn uncut. There are a surprising number of wild flowers that grow in it and it looks like a beautiful flowery meadow when its left to its own devices. It is gorgeous like that and we will miss seeing it this year. Unfortunately, having done this every year we’ve been here, last year the grass just didn’t recover properly last summer leaving coarse yellow/brown swathes in it. We figured this year, we’d give it a break and cut it properly, giving the grass a chance to flourish a bit and then returning to the meadow again next year.
I’ve mentioned our ‘pool’ and since Saturday morning and early afternoon was forecast to be dry, we dragged the thing out of its winter hibernation. We have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the pool, when it’s up and operational, it is a little slice of heaven that we use frequently. The ability to jump in and cool off at the drop of a hat is utter luxury and so very much appreciated. The temperatures can get quite high here in the summer – usually consistently around the high 20’s/low 30’s and the highest we’ve had while we’ve been here was 38. That was a scorcher! 😅
But whilst we post many photos of our wonderful paddle boarding/cycling/swimming in the lakes adventures, these are not everyday occurrences. What is an everyday occurrence is the work; making beds, cleaning, hoovering, mowing, laundry, maintenance etc. Sometimes we have minimal physical work but simply have to stay here to await guest arrivals and just can’t go out.
In the months of July and August, we can usually enforce a minimum stay of 3 nights (we may not be able to do it this year 😔 ) but this allows us to reduce the number of changeovers every day – these are the times the workload is at its heaviest. A full house changeover is a perfect storm of cleaning, laundry and new guest arrivals and it’s very rare that we get much time (or energy) left over to go out afterwards. These are the times that being able to jump in the pool and cool off are an absolutely god send. Putting it up, filling it and reversing the process in the autumn are when we have the least favourable relationship with the pool. It is faff personified. 😆
Our little pool has outlasted all of our expectations – Mum and Dad had procured it from some friends in France, many years ago. They had given it to me when I lived in Liss, after my first summer in that house was a scorcher. The following years were not quite so warm or dry and so it remained in my Mum’s house, taking up her valuable space and generally getting in her way. We finally relieved her of it when we moved here. (Thank you Mum.. and sorry!) 😇 😂
Since it needs completely flat ground to set up and that is in very short supply here, Mark created some. As I mentioned before, the ground had become less flat and the pool seems to have a larger footprint now (time/use has stretched the plastic walls maybe?) so adjustments were needed this year.
We had intended to replace it with a hard walled, winter proof version this year, saving ourselves the faff and also the cost of the water to fill it from scratch every year. We had saved enough to do it but with this current situation, we just daren’t spend precious funds on a pool, so we are asking for just one more season out of the poor little thing. 😓 🤞
Mark’s newly enlarged base was the perfect size and with rain due in the afternoon, we were on a mission to invent a little ‘water management project’ of our own. 😉 We rigged up some of the guttering that Mark found clearing the compost pile to catch the water from the garage roof. Added it to the existing guttering and now have a very Heath Robinson water catchment and pool filling mechanism.. it is a thing of beauty! Ok… maybe not beauty exactly, but it is working!! AND it will save a couple hundred quid of water costs to fill it up… hopefully! 😁 😁
We finished it with about half an hour to spare before the rain started and spent that half hour jumping up and down and shouting ‘come on… hurry up…. rain!’ Not often we do that! As if this wasn’t bad enough, every shower that comes over, we grab the binoculars to check it’s still running… 🙄 😆
We’re pretty chuffed with the result, although it is filling painfully slowly so you may find that we get more excited about rain than sun for the next few weeks! And now that the mountainsides have pretty much gone green, you will likely find yourselves waiting with bated breath for pool depth updates… 😜 😂 Next update will probably involve pictures of paint drying for your delectation… 🙄 😂
Stay safe everyone xx
