Ditches and Drains

Yesterday, I spent a very pleasant day with David in Leeds, whereas Liz has painted the sitting room and dining room walls with watered-down basecoat. They're a bit patchy, of course, but they look loads better. Next weekend we will hopefully get one or two of the proper coats on top.

Today then I've done some bits and pieces, which hasn't really felt very productive: but Liz has first-coat painted the rest of the kitchen, including undercoating the big window's reveals. Meanwhile, I've filled the screw holes on the reveals in the sitting room (almost), and started undercoating them.

The really heavy rain of the last few days has meant there have been two little rivers flowing down the orchard. We've had about 4" of rain, which is a large fraction of the annual 48"—that's about a month's rain in two days. The ditch is just about keeping up, but the silly drain that I keep meaning to change is, well, being silly, and flooding some of the water onto the lane. That's a pain, as it scours the potholes. However, it's all worse still for the New Barn, as everything in the ditch and track finds its way to the crossroads, and some goes down to them. The ditch for this has, really, been inadequate for this much water, and they're in serious of danger of a flooded ground floor. Madness, for 1100' up in the Pennines, to flood, but there you go.

In brighter news, my part-made pond (where I dug out clay for planting the pond) has filled. I suspect it will empty again, as I don't think the walls are sufficiently clay-heavy to hold it. Never mind: as I make more ponds above it, to create a chain of reservoirs, and eventually line them, they'll clearly fill—and they will help slow the flow of water.