‘Trust Me, I’m A Doctor’

We began the day by transferring our waterboy from the edge of the kitchen garden to a suitable spot nearer the house. This meant two trips by wheelbarrow, one for him, and one for his shell. Before going off to Stewart’s Garden Centre we needed to make sure the whole feature would fit where we planned, and to take measurements of the depth of the water and the diameter of tube required to link a pump to the lad. By ‘we’, as usual, I mean Jackie.  ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor’, said she as she performed a delicate endoscopy with a piece of flexible curtain wire. It was necessary to ensure there would be no internal blockages to impede the regular colonic irrigation of the water that would be flowing through the body.

Satisfied in all respects that our find would work we drove to the garden centre. In fact the size of pump we required was purchased from Maidenhead Aquatics, an outlet on the parent company’s campus. At Stewart’s itself, we collected the rest of Jackie’s birthday solar lights, one of which is seen suspended over the patio behind the water feature.
Unfortunately, four of the components were missing from one box of lights, so we had to go back to the shop to replace it. There was no problem with this. As we were out, we stopped off at Ferndene Farm Shop and bought six more bags of gravel.
Hordle Chinese Take Away provided our evening meal, but Jackie had to go and fetch it. She drank Hoegaarden whilst I imbibed Tsing Tao.
Afterwards we dead-headed a large rhododendron, in order to promote next year’s flowering.

It was almost 10 p.m. by the time the solar lights came on, because we are nearing the longest day. These lamps gather their power from the sunlight, but it is only triggered when the night draws in.