The pressure's on!

Nah, it's not, it's the weekend!  No work, no furniture shows, no visitors and nothing planned - a whole weekend off is quite rare at the moment you know - and the sun's shining so all's well with the world.  

Here's the new water butt all plumbed in and everything - looks a bit Heath Robinson, but I quite like that.  The overflow isn't really half way down (that wouldn't be good use of a huge barrel), but the wooden slats are widest at this point so better for drilling through and inside it's connected to a pipe which goes to almost the top of the barrel.  On the outside it goes into standard orange plastic pipe which leads to a soakaway, but that would look horrible so we've hidden that inside and old piece of salt-glaze pipe we had lying around.  We then cut a circle of slate with a hole in it which sits inside the lip of the old pipe with the overflow pipe going through it and then we've put a bit of soil on top and planted lemon thyme in it which should trail down and look lovely.  Eventually the little wall here will probably be a course or two higher and there'll be some plants the other side of it, but that'll have to wait until we know what we're doing with the pathway there.  This seems to be how we have done the garden (and the house for that matter).  We can't plan it all in advance like a lot of people do - we get an idea for one bit and then when that bit is done it helps us decide what to do with the next bit and so on - seems to have worked out OK so far.  

Now that we have two water butts, we thought it was important to monitor the pressure in at least one of them and so we have fitted a pressure guage to the one near the kitchen as it's easier to keep an eye on that one.

Not really!  What would be the point in that?!  Bob's dad used to work for a firm that made water pumps or something and when we were clearing his shed out, we found this lovely one and didn't want to throw it away and so we've had it lying around ever since.  We thought it'd look quite funny on one of the water butts and make people wonder what on earth it's for and so here it is.  You have to tap it as you go past and slightly adjust the handle just to make sure everything's fine - like they do on films.  Well, it makes me smile anyway!

Oops a daisy!  This is what underground drain pipes look like after you've put a pick axe through them!  Bob was digging out for a bit more of the wall he and Ben started at Christmas and then said 'Erm, I think I might have hit a pipe or something' - guess the echoing, booming noise underground is a bit of a giveaway!  Luckily, this pipe isn't being used at the moment - we just put it in in case we ever put any plumbing in the top barns - so there was no need to panic.  It is now repaired which is a little awkward when the pipe is in situ, but it's done.

Guess what!  Bob actually had a phone call from someone in Surrey who had seen his website (sheltonfurniture.co.uk) and wanted to order a chair!  How exciting is that?  It all seems a bit strange really - generally Bob has at least met anyone who buys a chair, so this is all a bit remote.  Apparently though Shropshire is this chap's favourite part of the country and he has family not too far away, so he may actually come and collect it when the time comes.

We've spent the day so far in the garden with me part way though a mega weeding session and Bob sorting the pipe and wall out.  I came in for a cool-down to write this and now I'm feeling the call of a nice cool bottle of cider from the fridge!  Enjoy the sunshine!