This afternoon's rain proved the point that I have been suspecting ever since I tipped the mop bucket down this drain, which is attached to the gutter downpipe just outside the kitchen patio door, and watched the disinfectant filled water simply swish away over the patio instead of going down! No wonder this wall seems damp on the inside, and the patio behind always takes an age to dry out and is soooo slippery.... So A arrived home to be presented unceremoniously with a plunger and some rubber gloves and he spent a happy half hour quite literally up to his elbow in the drain. Hopefully blockage cleared? I will inspect in the morning in the daylight I think.
Once I'd got the bit between my teeth tho, there was no stopping me - I checked all the other gutter drains and round the other side of the house, under the lounge windows, discovered this shocking sight:
This very narrow gauge downpipe is an old cast iron one, and we didn't even know the downpipe was here until the other day when A was enthusiastically leaf-blowing 6 months worth of fallen leaves away from the base of the wall here. Obviously his enthusiasm must have worn off too quickly as altho he had moved a lot of the leaves, he hadn't got on to trowelling out the 5 inches of pure soil which are filling this drain opening!!! Doh....
This reminds me to send him up the long ladder at the weekend to thoroughly clear out all the gutters, as judging by what I scooped out of the low utility gutter along the footpath, they haven't been done for quite some time.
On a more positive, celebratory note, before the rain started this afternoon I did manage to finish weeding the fruit patch - hurray! I almost got one redcurrant bush pruned but the rain started, so no photos yet unfortunately. Tomorrow my challenge is to get the ash and manure mulch down before any weedlings start to germinate again, and press on with the pruning of the redcurrants urgently as it should really have been finished by March at the latest according the the Fruit Expert...oops. Oh well, as mentioned previously, these bushes are buxom healthy girls, I can't imagine a spot of late pruning will offend them overmuch.
And, to round off the evening, I have just ordered my electric fencing kit for the chicken run!
Though my planned quick run to Mole Valley Farmers to collect the rabbit proof fencing stuff might be kyboshed by an impromptu trip to the vets tomorrow for Mr Darcy, whose suspected tick on the head has turned out instead to be an enormously deep, fairly disgusting hole in his head, nicely suppurating and stinking to high heaven with delightful green puss! Possibly a fighting injury? If so, it obviously healed partially but was infected inside as the edges of the hole, which is about half a centimetre across, look as tho they've healed, he just has this weird stinking hole in his head that every so often discharges more puss... Lovely.
That's why I thought I'd better get my electric fencing order in before I get the collywobbles over the cost if I've got vets bills to pay too....
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