The woodle get hayut

Yesterday Joe finished installing the fountain. He did this despite intermittent thunderstorms. He had dug channels that did not work- and sort of filled them in – and then channels that did work – and sort of filled them in – so the entire back garden looked like a large pile of gooey mud that had been visited by both Bomber Harris and marauding bands of gophers.

Much of the mud is on the paths – and this is where my handy dandy pressure sprayer will come into its own. I knew I bought it for a reason. Every man should have a pressure sprayer.

The fountain would not turn off and I did not have time to read the instruction manual so I unplugged it. Tomorrow I will set aside a couple of hours to master the fountain whizzer which is the size of an iWatch and has an instruction manual an inch thick.

‘Chapter 176: Using your fountain in zero gravity conditions – WiFi considerations’.

The tree lights are not quite right and Joe will have to come back and fix them. This is inevitable as the instructions are relayed from Cate to me and then me to Joe – and I never really understood them in the first place.

So what I ask for – which seems logical to Joe and I – turns out to be the work of complete mindless cretins when it is executed. And I must admit that when Cate explains to me where Joe and I went wrong it all seems much clearer.

The deck men have been here – off an on – for some time. My initial request was to ‘sand the deck and stain it’ and I accepted their quote for $500.

It seems that in the continental USA there are many meanings for ‘sand’.

My intention was that they sand the deck to remove the existing stain (which I applied so badly) and then stain it with the stuff I am supplying. The sanding also being intended to smooth out the bumps in the deck.

This whole episode has now descended into a Goat Thing of epic proportions worthy of a Harvard Business School study and we may have to sell the house to pay for the deck. 

Men have spent days here pressure spraying the deck with and without chemicals.  I get hourly calls from the supervisor who tells me to whom he has spoken and the very many reasons why what I want to be done cannot be done.

‘Wayell - the woodle get hayut and the stain won’t stick’

(well…the wood will get hot and will lose the efficacy to accept the stain)

Every now and then I go and talk to the pressure sprayer who says things (mournfully) such as ‘slow goin’ ain’t it’.

Yesterday it rained so they did not come to stain. If they do not come tomorrow I am dousing the deck in gasoline and torching it.