Making good

This is unlikely to come as a surprise to anyone who follows either of our journals, but Tivoli and I have a super-practical brother. When I saw him at the weekend I told him I was concerned about the electrics in the Shed of Three Waterfalls (primarily: a mains cable held to rotten rafters by rusty staples, an extension lead whose sockets are mouldy and warped, and a piece of terminal block dangling from one piece of cable with a plug swinging below). He promised to call in with his testing equipment today, when Oxford was roughly en route from one of his jobs to another. He has been known to completely rewire a friend's flat when he decided it was too dangerous not to but I very much hoped that wouldn't be necessary.

First he tested the house wiring. All fine, even if conforming to some superseded regulations. Phew. I showed him something I didn't like behind a rough formica cover. He told me it was a normal part of the electricity supply, just usually better hidden. Then the shed. He plugged in the tester: completely dead. He followed the wiring back to where it came in through the plywood 'wall' on the boundary with next door, pulled, and out came an unconnected cable. No electricity in the shed at all. Double phew. 

Meanwhile, our mum's prodigious digging had uncovered a path. One of my aims for this week was to empty the old compost bin of its density of convolvulus root, resite it, and start the compost again, but I hadn't worked out the best place to put the bin. Decision made - by the fence at the end of the discovered path. I rolled a broken paving slab into a place where it could be both useful and hidden, added a few bricks (inevitably) and lo - a compost bin ready to fill!

As a respite this afternoon I went to the dental appointment I've been waiting for since my tooth broke on the day that dental practices re-opened over two weeks ago. They are doing hour-long appointments, followed by hour-long breaks to deep-clean the surgery. My dentist and his assistant were so impressively swathed in PPE that I couldn't recognise them. 

Tooth mended and all fine, except that it was not easy to eat the dinner I cooked for visiting daughter and flatmate this evening. No problem drinking the gin and tonic though!