Rolling raindrops

"Vera", yelled Lester, "Come and have a look at our guttering. See if its working. It's raining. Come on."

"*******" and other assorted expletives were flung about in the air as I uncoiled myself from my computer chair, and duly followed Hubs, grabbing my umbrella along the way because it was tipping down with rain. Ah, that dear umbrella, once so pristine, now much battered about having accompanied me through various wetnesses.

Yet it still just about works!





Lester testing that the water was coming through the guttering in a goodly flow. Yes, it was. And plans to build a concrete tank to catch the water before it disappears into the earth are spouting forth from him.

My plan is a plain plastic tub. I always seem to go for more simpler plans. Like Hubs's plan for the well out front. Need to get the water up so the plants can be watered for free. So Hubs's plan is for an electic pump and a huge circular water container which can also catch the downwater from the tall barn when it eventually gets its roof. I favour a hand pump. A bit of arm action followed hopefully by a bit of a squirt of water straight into the watering can. No electricity needed therefore carbon footprint balanced, and will give good exercise to my upper arms which tend to flap about with extraneous flesh when I wave them up and down too fast. Like wings.


And a quick trip into the veg plot to see how things are doing after the lunch time inspection a couple of hours previously. We have lots of inspections during the day. Sometimes Hubs. Sometimes me. Sometimes all three of us together. One way or another, it gets a lot of inspections. We are learning to watch the plants grow, which they are doing at a cracking pace at the moment.

On the way back, into the half barn, to check the roof is not leaking. I kept my umbrella up out of habit. I am not used to being in the house without getting dripped on. It has dripped from the day we arrived. Or did. Now, no longer. We even watched the raindrops rolling themselves down the velux windows in the roof. I think that will become a past-time for rainy days in the future, when we have moved in.


Things I have learnt today: I don't need an umbrella in the half barn anymore. It is better to get the letter written to the French water company Veolia on the day it arrives rather than letting it sit on my desk for days, the attached worry-factor about having to write an official letter in French not being worth the tension it produced. A day off from having the builders here re-organises the peacefulness of Labartere.