All at once

It never ceases to amaze me how everything happens at once. Yesterday was a fine example.

I was just settling down to go jigging, when a white van turned the corner – a delivery. Even while I was sorting that out, another vehicle arrived – our gardener & her husband.

As soon as I’d taken in the delivery I headed to the garden to see what our gardener was up to & to let her have the garage key to get to the tools.

I admit I was surprised to see her as the ground was still iced over, more with frost than snow. I would have thought the ground was too hard to dig into.

Her husband was here to power-wash the patio area. I suggested he started on the walled garden area as I suspected any wetness would freeze over, turning it into an ice rink. I’m not good on my feet without having to negotiate an ice rink to get to the bins, laundry room or garage. The walled garden I don’t venture into much at this time of year so if it did ice over it wouldn’t be a problem.

However once he’d got the power-washer out & set up it wouldn’t start up. In the midst of trying to sort that out the phone goes – the lawn people again to let me know it would probably be Friday before they got here due to the weather. Fine I said & got back to our gardener’s husband.

By this time he’d tried different plug sockets, different fuses, still no use. Then he realised that in the socket where the water enters there was a little finger of ice. Clearly any water that was still in the machine had frozen. Was this why it wouldn’t switch on? We concluded it may be better to leave it overnight in the warmer laundry room rather than the freezing garage. I’d have a go in the morning today.

When I tried it there was a roar of the motor & a squirt of cold water straight into my face. Clearly it had just not liked the cold. I let the gardener know. They will be back on a milder day.

It just seemed like it was one thing after another. Exhausting, not to say fraying!