Sunny.

We've had sunshine today, proper blue sky with fluffy white clouds. That made a nice change. In the morning some work men came down to fix our septic tank system. As we thought, the air pump had to be replaced which they did. After pumping out the excess water from the outflow chamber, they said that the pump there was fine but the hose had split. The chap suggested that 'my husband' could get some new hose and it would simply be a matter of putting it on the pump and reconnecting to the out flow pipe. After last week's debacle I asked to have a closer look at this simple connection. As it was several feet down in a confined space and the pipe was pointing downwards I decided that it would be too much for Peter's arthritic hands and asked them to come back with the hose and fit it for us. And a good thing too as when they connected it all up water still wasn't going out. Apparently the non-return valve had jammed shut and they had to do more dismantling and banging before it was working again. The bend in the metal pipe had become filled up with gravel that had washed back from the stream. To stop it happening again we'll fix some nylon mesh over the outflow pipe where it lays in the stream.

In between all the coming and going of the  workmen I took advantage of the sun and finished weeding the grass bed. Next job will be weeding around the pond which at the moment is filled with tadpoles.