Friday 7 November 2025: A shiny new fence

And here we are. Friday again already…

Yesterday began rather like the day before had, with me making corrections to the blog post over a dirty cuppa on my mobile phone. I really ought to build in proofreading time again. The garden chap was coming to build a fence, so I had to get up with the poet and get dressed. The pup had let us sleep in until 7:45am, which is excellent.

I was in the garden clearing up after one of the dogs at about 9:20am when the garden man showed up. He ummed and ahhed and made a few other noises when he saw the size of the fence posts we’d had delivered. But he made a start all the same.

Three hours later he was done. The fence was up. There were no gaps anywhere for pup to wriggle out of (apart from a tiny gap where the greenhouse used to be, but the poet is going to block that one off). And both dogs came out to inspect the work with me. It’s a simple post-and-wire fence that serves just one purpose: to keep the dogs in.

But three hours? It’s just over 100 yards/metres and he had to dig holes around tree roots and lumps of concrete to get the posts in. And he’d gone over them sawing them all down to the same height.

Good work.

In the time he was here, I had to keep the animals occupied and contained without getting distracted. So I put a washload through, emptied the bins, washed and dried my hair, had my midday breakfast, and started a custard for a trifle we were having for our tea. I’d remembered to start the jelly (jell-o) and sponge base the night before, so that was already set. But I had to make the custard/blancmange in time for it to cool and set and be poured on top of the base. I still had the topping to make right before serving, which I would do while the poet cooked tea.

In a couple of moments of rare quiet, we all sat together in the conservatory while the dogs slept and I read. When the poet came home for the afternoon to work, that’s where he found us. He had a play with them and I finally made it to my desk.

The Mac had been nagging for me to do an update for a couple of days, so I did that, and while I waited I drank another cup of tea and stared out at the garden. We can see the new fence posts, but the wire is invisible. As the posts age and turn a bit green, those will get lost against the hedge as well. But, oh, the garden looks so much bigger again, as though the posts are marking out its sheer size.

There was no way I’d have been able to do my fitness half hour while the garden man was here. Spaniel is fine but pup thinks it’s the next big adventure if I’m lying on the actual floor where he can reach me. So with the poet home to take over pet duties, I moved the fitness half hour to the afternoon. I did have the newsletter pencilled in for then too, but I moved that to next week, so it’s only 1 week late. If other things still run over, I may make it a December newsletter and have done with it.

The only other job I had in was that client edit the author had decided to send in a new version of. I’d already spent a few hours on it, but I needed it off my desk. I couldn’t remember if I’d been paid for it or not, and the money would certainly be useful with all this extra spend on the garden and the dogs. I went off in search of emails, to see if I had already invoiced them. For some reason I can’t find my latest invoice file on the Mac and I had to dig deep to find an old one to copy for the last invoice I sent.

I had a brainwave while I was doing that. It was easy to do a search for the client in my webmail, so every time I found an invoice attached, I downloaded the invoice. That, at least, brought my records back up to date. I have no idea where I might have filed them, but this Mac files stuff willy nilly at the best of times if I’m not firm with it, so they could be anywhere really.

Oh yes, and I hadn’t already invoiced for this particular job, so that will be a nice bonus once I get the book sent off to the designer.

I should still be working on that today. In fact, it’s the only job I have scheduled all day, in between pet playtime, fitness half hour, refreshment breaks, and weekly admin – backup and finances. I’ve spent some money this week too, so the finances might take a while longer than they have of late.

We don’t have any plans for the weekend. We can’t take the pup anywhere yet until he’s 3 weeks past his last injection. (Two weeks to go! He’s 12 weeks old today.) We could take him in the walker we bought when Rufus was really poorly but never got around to using it, but pup will still want to get out and have a run and a play, and we can’t really do that yet.

We may go and get the campervan, bring it to the house and drain it down for the winter. Even if we do manage to take it out for a run over the next few months, we’re unlikely to need running water, and we had a burst pipe last year. We also had a flat battery last year. We think the wind kept setting the alarm off until it ran out of juice. It’s in a very secure compound already, so we may not risk that again this year.

Whatever you’re up to, have a good weekend!