21.06.2025 Sixteen tons and whadya get?

 ~o~

  Saturday 21st 55F/12.8C [6.30] Continuous sunshine. Reaching 24C/75F. 

 Up at 6am after a quiet night. I am trying to control another nosebleed. Not helped by a runny nose.

 The back-filled tub seen from the front hall.  

The pond in the greenhouse needs some gravel. The village gravel man has nothing suitable. So it looks like a drive into the city. Where the fish keeping shop sell sacks of the stuff. At ten times the price of the local sand and gravel man. What is worse is that it still has to be rinsed. As it still contains a lot of dust from the machines at the quarry which bags it.

 I also need a hose adapter for my kitchen mixer tap. It is only a few meters to the pond through the internal kitchen window. I could rig up a length of plastic guttering. Straight from the tap to the pond. Or a gutter down pipe and bend. A hose would be easier, more efficient and safer in the longer term. There are still about a hundred floor bricks to move and stack somewhere else.  

 8.00 Returning from a 36 minute walk to the lanes. A cool start but too warm at the end. The weekend traffic was very light.

 9.30 Leaving for the city in the Morris. To buy some gravel. I researched online and found a wide range of opinions on the use of gravel. For and against. I prefer gravel. 

 12.30 Back from the city laden with bags of gravel. Which looks almost identical to the stuff I bought yesterday. I also managed to find a fitting for a hose to my kitchen mixer tap. At the third attempt. Two chain outlets either hadn't any stock. Or were too technically inadequate to know what I needed. 

 13.00 75F/24C. Lunch over. I just have time to go and buy a hose. 

 14.00  Back again. Clutching a hose and spray nozzle. I already have a pair of quick connectors.

 The new gravel is much more closely sized than the sandman's. 3-6mm rather than his 6mm to dust. Or thereabouts. 

 18.00 I found a large builder's bucket and rinsed one bag of gravel using the hose. It proved to be quite time consuming and wasted lots of water. The stated 15kg of gravel, per bag, was now much heavier. So it needed adequate transport from the parking space around to the greenhouse. 

 The stack of bags on the sack truck weren't readily volunteering to give up their territory. So I'll have to lift each wet, bucket full into the wheelbarrow. Should I tip the contents into the wheelbarrow? Or should it remain in the bucket? So many decisions! I decided to put it off while I pondered further.

 Dinner was mackerel in tomato sauce on toast with halved "Sugar Drop" tomatoes. I managed not to burn it.

 21.00 A hot air balloon just went over. Perhaps the second I have seen in 30 years in Denmark. They used to be commonplace over Bath in England.

  

  ~o~