DIY

DIY not what it used to be these days, with my feeling very pleased with myself yesterday with what would have been trivia, in the margins in years gone by.

Item 1, it suddenly came to me that the clutter in our under-stairs cupboard would be significantly reduced by adding a few cup-hooks to hang things off. This being easy enough, first, because I had preserved a jam jar half full of cup-hooks in the garage in case they came in handy one day and, second, because one had the wooden underside of the stairs into which to screw them. No messing around with masonry bits and fixings. Four cup-hooks now installed and three hangings illustrated left. The blue hanging on the far left contains what is left of our supply of bird seed and it only remains to be seen whether I will remember where it is when November comes round, the season for hanging bird feeders out on the back patio. Last time it took some time, some days even.

The gauge next to it is a cunning device to equalise the pressure between the gravity feed hot water supply and the pressure feed cold water supply, with the result that the shower on the other side of the wall does both hot and cold at the turn of the handle. A cunning device dreamed up by Mr. Mills the builder, rather than the plumber.

Item 2, there had been complaints about a couple of shoots poking out of the top of the hawthorn tree in the front garden, threatening to interfere with our overhead broadband supply. The hawthorn which I notice when it flowers well, perhaps every other year. See, for example, reference 2, with the broadband supply is concerned just about visible top right. On this front, it suddenly came to me that these shoots would make a fine opportunity to deploy the long pole tree pruner noticed at reference 1.

And, in the event, I found that by opening the pruner up to its full ten foot extent and standing on a pair of steps, that I could reach and cut off the two shoots in question. Quite a tricky tool to handle at full stretch, but in this context, inside the crown of a small tree, at least possible. We will see how long it takes BH to notice, in the course of her morning surveys of the world outside from our bedroom window.

PS: I was reminded later of the elaborate shelving installed in his cupboard under the stairs by the naval uncle in Alverstoke. Elaboration born of the storage exigencies of both shipboard and caravan life. From where, for some reason or another, I associate to the splendid hotel at reference 3, which we stayed in a couple of times. Once used by Edward VII and his Jersey lily, to be near, but not at, the rather stuffy Osborne, over the water.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/autumn-cutlery-1.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/hawthorne.html.

Reference 3: http://www.alverbankhotel.co.uk/.