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First full day home, so of course my daughter wanted another bike ride. We only did 9km this time and headed towards Luton, but thankfully didn’t get there. After the relative safety of the Strawberry Line (apart from the Axbridge Bypass misjudgement) it was slightly scary to be out in traffic, but we also realised that Phoebe’s bike is now a bit small for her and mine is a bit big for me (I haven’t shrunk- I don’t think- it always was). I guess if we’re going to do this as regularly as we seem to be doing that we might have to upgrade our shitty equipment. And I might have to teach myself bicycle maintenance (though I did manage to raise Phoebe’s saddle today, but only by the centimetre that was possible).
A couple of young motorcyclists zoomed past at a stupid speed. I said they were dicks. My daughter, who has just realised that Richard is not just a ridiculous name in its own right, but also has an amusing shortened form, pointed out that I was a Dick. And she knows I can’t reprimand her. She’s right.
Both meanings as it happens.
We came home to find Ernie and Catie in the garden so we set up the sprinkler and they played in that for a bit, whilst I tried to do some tidying. My parents garden is so perfect and lovely that I thought maybe I should try and think about improving our little lot. I threw away a load of broken plant pots and emptied the good ones of weeds and thought about what I could plant in there instead. Bike maintenance and gardening? Someone is old before their time!
Oh wait, just checked my calendar. Someone is old a bit later than their time.
I was also determined to fill up the gaps in the walls that rodents might be using too enter our premises - or at least were doing til we poisoned the fuckers. I had ordered some chicken wire before the holiday but not had time to install it. It came with gloves and clippers and it was quite a palaver just getting the polythene off. I got pricked a few times. I climbed out the bathroom window and removed the sieve over the old toilet pipe and stuff the chicken wire into the hole - that was relatively easy and that hole wasn’t the problem anyway) and then I tried to lean down to the other flue, the one that the mice have almost certainly been getting in, but it was just a bit too far down for me to reach. It’s right above our log store, but the roof to that is rotten and cracking and though I thought about standing on it, I decided against it. Instead I tried to climb up from below, but I couldn’t get on to the roof and the flue was too far away. I tried to use a pole to put the chicken wire in, and it almost worked, but the flue cover came off almost completely and the hole behind it was quite gaping. So as we need to replace the log store anyway and as it’s summer so it doesn’t matter too much if the logs get damp. I started to try to remove the roof. The corrugated plastic on top snapped off with a bit of effort, but in little shards. Eventually I got far enough to punch through the rotten hardboard beneath, but I was getting showered with debris and shards of plastic and getting spiked on old screws. Eventually though I’d made a bit enough hole to clamber on top of the log pile and try and fill the gap,
This is so obviously the problem. There was a large opening behind the dislodged cover and a hole leading down into the wall - which is surely where the vermin has found access into our ceiling. I tried to fill it with chicken wire, but it was too large a space. So I filled the downward channel and then got a couple of half bricks and filled up most of the rest of the gap, and put chicken wire into the rest of it. I am 98% certain that this flue has no modern day purpose and know where all my appliance flues are. But I will get someone to double check my work just in case, The cover was certainly old and falling apart and there was nothing behind it except holes, so let’s make it 99%. That 1% of doubt makes life interesting.
I felt like I’d done something impressive, even if it was mainly punching in an old bit of rotten hardboard, but hopefully I have solved a problem and hopefully nothing got trapped on the wrong side of the plug. I guess we’ll find out if it did soon enough (though again 99% certain that we got rid of the mild infestation first).
I was grubby and scratched, but I hadn’t fallen off a roof or through a roof or slipped down a pile of wood, so I was happy.
