A whole new dimension

Sometimes living on the Bonsai Mountain poses a few difficulties, especially in winter where you need a four by four and motivation to break out to civilisation. We are content being marooned, especially when there is a roaring fire and a good stock of food. Since we have lived here there have been a few run ins with delivery drivers. The absolute classic can be found in the archive when a stroppy driver from a well known electrical store with a name similar to an ethnic spicey dish refused to drive his everso small lorry up our dirt track on the basis that it was impossible to get the lorry there. Even when shown photographic evidence that the same lorry had delivered the day before the oaf tried to make off with my fridge that I had been waiting 9 weeks for. He dumped it in the Oracle's yard and Ben, Fifi and I managed to get it back to HQ without breaking it or ourselves.

So, we are explicit with the delivery drivers, you need a small lorry, and the majority pay heed. Small versions of oil tanker lorries deliver the fuel for the Rayburn, medium sized cement mixers dropped off the stable floor in three loads, builders merchants use the small flat bed and one bad tempered but up for a challenge driver eventually got his huge eight wheeler with crane to drop off five pallets of nine inch concrete blocks. All is well. One final snag here is that they have to reverse up the Bonsai Mountain, there's no way to turn around and they cant drive up as invariably the load is dropped behind the truck so they would have to stay until we used the delivery, which is sometimes weeks.

The stone was delivered for the patio. On a separate note why is it cheaper to get 45 square metres of ethically sourced stone for a patio from India, via York, and dropped here, rather than our local quarry who wanted nearly three times the money for the same sort of stone. Anyway, on with the tale of the lucky driver with the lorry load of stone. Warning signs were apparent, on reflection, the delivery hub phoned up and asked it there was anyone who could help get the stone of the truck. Well not really. The driver has to use a pallet truck to get it off, is the surface its unloaded onto smooth, well no, its a dirt track and its a hilly dirt track. Never mind he will manage. OK, but remember a small lorry, yes we remember, small as in less than an eight wheeler, yes its a six, non articulated, yes a small six wheeler with a tail lift, be with you in the hour. Great. As can bee seen from the video above, a dimension we all forgot about was height. The first we knew of any problems was seeing an irate chap in the lane cursing the foliage. Down by the pig pen he gave up his battle with the trees and begged to be allowed to drop the load there. Luckily for him, and me, our ever so friendly Mr Digger was here and he got to grips with the heavy pallets and dropped them by portal to the patio, the white visible from space gate. Our hapless driver set off grumbling about being higher without the weight of the stone in the back, the words he was going to have with his transport manager but thankful for the gallon of cider given as a small thank you.

Well trained pigs

All this for a nut!

You got a licence buddy?

There are days when even I am surprised at the amount that goes on here. Today was the day the fish arrived, courtesy of our friends in the Isle of Man, we now have some spectacular rainbow trout. As we got up early there was plenty of time for last minute cock ups, the best one being a severe lack of water in the holding tank. I had taken the tank system apart to allow Mr Digger a chance to make part of the Bonsai Mountain level, so last night the big tank was put back pride of place, level, fantastic, and so the filling process began. As all the pipes are currently disconnected due to a huge yellow JCB wandering around I set up the pump from the well. It took ages to fill it. This was because I had left the drain tap on, so almost as fast as it was going in it was seeping out. This morning I left Tracey in charge as I went off on a mission which resulted in the two very underweight but extremely friendly Alsatian pups pictured below joining the list of rescue dogs .

She checked the water level ready to put the fish in when they arrived and found it dry. Luckily she knows me better than any one and quickly spotted my schoolboy error and got the tank filled in time for the new inhabitants. This is where she let herself down just a bit, no photos, and as the fish arrived in a box, full of ice, frozen fish who then defrosted and sprang back to life that would have been pretty interesting to see, but she forgot and I forgive her. The fish have melted, come back from the dead and ripping into unlucky worms dropped in as the fish food parcel arrives tomorrow. So cock up one was my inability to turn off a tap, cock up two was a call from CEFAS, the fish licensing authority contacting me asking for my fish keeping licence. Now we had this out a while back, as an imbecile I don't need a fish licence, this had been established in a long conversation with them, not that I was an imbecile, no, that took moments to establish but after a long chat we went through the four tiers of licensing and as our tank is above ground, not accessible to the public, does not contain nuclear material and will not be used to carry children, we don't need a licence. Sorted. Not so. The final tier, the one we didn't discuss as it was not on the cards was a fish importers licence. Being from the IoM the fish are imported so I need an importer of fish licence. Unless I promised not to do it again. I did. You don't need a licence. Cheers.
The redesign of the Bonsai Mountain continues, an amazing amount of space has been created by removing the 50 million tons of rock and dirt from the yard and the fencing work has now started. By mid next week the pig pens will have been created and seeded with root crops to give the lil piggies something interesting to dig up.

These two lively characters were kept indoors or on a balcony so are finding the great outdoors a bit overwhelming but they are adorable, totally friendly and we hope they are found new homes very soon.

Once bitten

I often get bitten, not by the critters but by insects, they love me. Guarantee if anyone gets bitten, its me. Horsefly's love me, midges seek me out, in fact any blood sucking type crawly has a spotters guide where I am number one target.
So when I got bitten yesterday it should have just been run of the mill. But this bite was different. I was sat at the PC. It, whatever it was, bit me on the arm as I typed. Now again, hardly unusual given the number of dogs and cats here the occasional flea breaches the security and has to be dealt with. But no, this was unusual as I was not at my PC, I was in a busy office full of people. And then I got bitten again. Initially I was worried that I had brought a visitor with me, it must have sneaked in and was now going to wreak havoc. How embarrassing. And then a colleague started to itch, and he had been bitten, as had the person opposite him. Panic started, we were infested. Our work brings us into contact with homes and occupants that are less than clean and a haven for bitey crawly things. Some must have stowed away in someones clothing and was now making its presence felt. Management was called, no way were they going to get pest control in for a few bites, there was nothing conclusive, nothing to prove that we had been bitten here in the building. Then she was bitten, twice, and then a third time as she explained to the business manager our little problem.
Now the business manager is loathe to spend money, and certainly did not want to be the one who called Rentokil, again. Not too long ago a very distressed admin bod came running from the corridor shrieking in fear that an exotic bug was marauding in the ladies toilets. Through her gibbering its location was established and one of the braver female social workers went to negotiate with the nasty red crawly and ask it not to put ladies off getting on with their lawful business. She returned a moment later having spotted the dangerous red insect and confirmed, only a tad less hysterically that it was definitely dangerous and needed dealing with, by an expert. The experts were called and the offices were cordoned off, work ceased, crowds gathered to watch. Aforementioned expert arrived, was given a map of where beast had its lair. Donning suitable protective equipment and armed with a baseball bat in one hand and claw like contraption for seizing insects in the other he solemnly made the long walk towards his destiny. He returned a few minutes later, the claw had done its job, held before him, very securely was a half eaten red jelly baby sweet.

Minor alterations

The digger arrived today and negan some minor alterations to Rock HQ. Ground level by the kennel was lowered and the lane to the cauldron was raised. I did try and move the concrete block retaining wall but gave up after an hour with the sledge hammer failed to break Karls handiwork. This came as a complete surprise as most of the things he built fell apart shortly after he left so why the wall should remain intact after the attention of Mr Sledge is a mystery


The cleared area is going to be the horse corral.

Eeeeek a monster!

Not me, Berky, Stable Sprites Boar, he's a monster, a luckily he is a very friendly monster given his tusks. Monsters this size need substantial enclosures and as we enter phase two of the pig keeping project at Rock HQ our friendly digger driver and number one ace fencer is back on the case and tomorrow rearranging the landscape ready for two more pig pens, a horse pen and a new drainage ditch. The priority task however is to level the base for the holding tanks for the fish farm, for him a ten minute job, for me ten days. The tank system works, we just need to make sure the tanks are set level and on a gravel base. The fish arrive Thursday so the next couple of evenings are going to be busy. For a change.

Lookout she's got a knife!

Today we celebrated Tracey's birthday, she swiftly dispatched the dinosaur cake by chopping off its head. Poor thing.

Men at work...mostly

Its been hectic here, work continues on the helipad, masses of progress thanks to the almost non stop

graft by Brad and Pritch, who did take a break for breakfast, elevenses, mid day cakes, a light lunch of cheeseburgers and black forest gateaux, four o'clockers and one for the road. Joking aside they did a great job and I was thankful I didnt have to do the wheelbarrowing as my arm is a bit sore from yesterdays man test when I shifted the 144 concrete blocks from the end of the yard to the building site.

Next weekend the walls are going to be finished and the top stones arrive.

Reuben kept an eye on proceedings through the cat flap as he is banned from the building site given the state he got into yesterday.