01/06/2012

LSS spent several hours at the aged FIL’s, for the first time meeting the person in charge of a service called SSIAD. This is a sort of domestic medical hygiene service, and LSS has been trying to get their assistance for over a month now. (It’s not right that a daughter should be washing her own father). Not that much washing has taken place thus far though; a quick lather of the legs and upper body has taken place on Saturday afternoons but that’s as far as it went.

The good news is that SSIAD will now take over this service, and not only that, but the aged FIL will now be thoroughly washed Daily (excepting weekends). He will never have been so clean! (Even the physiotherapist who visits three times a week had started commenting that he truly was a smelly old man).

I filled in the hole in the floor in the outbuilding containing the infamous ballon; the hole was dug years ago to insert the pipe leading to the well and was never filled in. We got fed up with falling into it, so today another little job was ticked off the list. We also erected a trellis fence next to the pea plants which have started to sprout – at least the little things will now have something to climb onto!

Today’s Colorado Beetle count: 3.

I have initiated a new sport, Ladybird Relocation. The rules are simple; search the garden for a ladybird (there are plenty). Encourage it to climb onto your finger. Then run like mad to a plant infested with greenfly (namely one of the little peach trees) and encourage the ladybird to climb off your finger onto a greenfly-covered leaf. I successfully transplanted five before getting bored. Knowing the voracious appetites of ladybirds, I’m fully expecting the peach tree to be greenfly-free by tomorrow morning.

Wildlife diary: A roe deer crossing the farm track. We also now have a stuttering cuckoo in the neighbourhood, which sounds very odd indeed. The call is something like: cuckoo, cuck-oo, cuck-cuck-cuck-cuck-cuck-oooooo (the last few syllables in a frenzied crescendo).

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