Wednesday 15 November 2023
Our road is flooded yet again. My plan today was to drive that way to go to a post box and for eggs and cake. My plan B was to park this side of the flood and walk through it. That is probably scuppered too because my wellies have a leak, I am still regretting not buying second-hand waders in my size and the other wellies I have are probably too uncomfortable to walk so far in. Plus the water would probably go over the top of them. These are not dilemmas I have in London. I have my heart set on cake, this could be my downfall.
I went out for a walk and managed to choose a window of time with no rain. I walked round a small area of woodland which had been closed off for months due to logging in the area. Yesterday was the second time I’d been there in the week since the loggers officially left. I hadn’t been there since March and I liked the feeling of walking somewhere that was probably untouched by humans over summer.
I wrote a letter to a friend yesterday, which I want to post today. I was horrified by how much of the letter was taken up with comments related to the weather. I mean, this is the UK, we all bang on about the weather, it’s a common and easy ice breaker conversation, but, really, I need to tone down the weather chat.
I also need to nip in the bud a recent thing whereby I take things that “might come in useful”. Yesterday, along the road were a few green plastic rolls of mesh stuff. I was convinced it would be useful so I picked up the four that were easily accessible. This is worrying behaviour, though I will amend that statement if/when they come in handy for something. I convinced myself they had a purpose, but I can’t think what it is now.
When Becky and I assembled the mitre saw (it wasn’t straightforward – well, the assembly was; the instructions weren’t), we were beside ourselves when we got it ready to mount on the saw bench Becky had put up. It then became apparent that the saw base fixture holes and the screws and threaded holes in the workbench were incompatible, no matter how hard we tried to make it work. I had thrown away the Einhell box the workbench had come in because it was slightly damaged and the day I unpacked it was recycling day so I put it in the bin. Also, we’d unpacked it, heavily used the instruction book and had assembled and disassembled it. I thought it wouldn’t be possible to return it. I wrote to Einhell and, seriously, so far, five stars for prompt reply and service. If all goes to plan, DPD will be collecting it today, armed with a delivery label. I found a long box from the hedge trimmer that it fit into and I’ve repackaged it. I won’t order what will hopefully be one that will work with our mitre saw until this one has been collected and refunded, but I’m really, really impressed with their customer service and the ease, at least to date, of returning it and getting a refund. The plan B for the mitre saw involved an old table the neighbour gave me and a plan to fix the saw to that. For more reasons than you might expect, that isn’t a straightforward plan B. Plan C is the return of the old one and the purchase of a new one. Plan C is looking promising.
Right, it’s 10:32 and I’m thinking it’s now or never with my going out and attempting to ford the flood, either on foot or in, ahem, Chris’s car (which is a 4×4 and thus higher than my car).