Wednesday May 22nd 2019

Aside from being soaked, this is an awful photograph. I didn't intend to repeat myself for a better image. So here is the story. We've not had rain for weeks and although I don't normally water the garden, tonight given a lot of plants are newly installed, a good soaking was overdue.

Way back, ohh 18 months ago, I bought one of those irrigation spike things you see in fields. You know the ones, they go thut thut thut and slowly spin round depositing a fine spray of water evenly over the land.  Or not.

After what seemed only a couple of minutes, but was actually near to a lifetime, I finally removed the hosepipe from under the car. Not wishing to start the mighty Clio I rolled it out the garage, unclipped the hosepipe, rolled the car back and realised the left front wheel was on the hosepipe.  An unforseen error. I rolled the car out the garage again, removed the now flat pipe, and rolled the car back. The hosepipe was now under the back wheel. Repeat a third time and finally I had extracted the watering pipe. Duly assembled, the moment of truth. I turned the tap on full, and everything unbuckled in a torrent of spray. Soaking one and all. Reconnecting the hoses and rechecking for tightness, tap turned on once more. A torrent of water shot over the neighbours garden, his neighbour too and while it thut thut thut'ed with abandon, it wheeled round at an alarming speed to where I stood adjacent to the tap. Soaking two.

Third time lucky. Tap turned on half way. A modest spray emanated from the spike. Lovely, like a gentle Japaneese water feature. Except the spray thing didn't move at all. Great for the lupins now growing out of a small lake, but not great for the rest of the garden. I gave up, picked up the spike and watered the garden by hand holding the spray attachment in my hand. Soaking three.

I wish it would rain......

PS: an interesting aside to all this is after watering I stood on the lawn watching a swift fly circles around me at head height - had the water lifted a myriad of insects into the now almost dark skies. Whatever the reason it was fantastic being circled by a swift, before watching it dip up and under one of the roof tiles.