Rumpy pumpy

My fingers are in ribbons.

I can barely type.

I am trying to type with one wrong finger and it is very difficult indeed.

In fact it became so difficult at that point that I took a brief interlude to get some Germolene and plasters, but they do not seem to have helped very much.

This somewhat painful entry might be rather short.

I have been building my magical archways, which has shredded my fingers and arms yet again. There is a picture attached, of the slowly-progressing arches, not my fingers, obviously. They are taking ages to build, and I am paying the price in blood, but they are beginning to look utterly brilliant. I am feeling very excited and am expecting Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustard Seed to turn up any time now.

We have even installed the watering system.

We attached little plastic nozzles to tubes and ran the whole arrangement around the conservatory and over the arches, before I added the bark and the moss. I was not exactly confident about this, because they were low budget nozzles bought from China at some colossally cheap sweatshop price, and in any case I was not quite sure that I had remembered to turn them all on.

This morning Mark got up early, and before he went to work he added a little pump that he had once taken out of an old caravan, and has been saving in his shed for several years in case of its future usefulness. That unlikely day has arrived today.

He had to drill a hole in the wall because we are using the rainwater from the roof which is stored in two big tanks outside. This is partly because rainwater is cheap, since it is not on a meter, and partly because plants like rainwater better than the stuff that the Council provide. This is because the Council fills their water with all sorts of chemical gubbins, like fluoride and substances to control your mind and recycled wee which is full of secondhand contraceptives.

I know all of this from Facebook, obviously.

The pump was a very exciting moment, I can tell you. The arches look very splendid and spectacular, but without water they will wither and die like the poor worms that accidentally wriggle on to the centrally-heated floor. Too much water and anybody sitting on the sofa will be distracted from their book and glass of red wine by an inconveniently unexpected showering experience.

I have faffed about making adjustments to this system for the last few days, and I had my tongue sticking out and everything. Obviously you cannot really know how it will all work until the moss is all actually in place, by which time it is too late to do anything much about it.

Hence my heart was in my mouth when Mark fastened the ancient caravan pump on to the end of the rainwater hose. He rigged up a lethal-looking electrical switch to the end, which he said I had got to be careful about, and switched it on.

It clattered and wheezed and shuddered, and nothing much happened.

It carried on clattering and chugging, but still nothing happened.

I squeaked anxiously and raced around the arches, looking to see what was happening.

What was happening was, in fact, exactly what we wanted to happen.

The pump was sending little spurts of water along the tiny black pipes, and squirting it out into the moss-covered arches in little dribbles, soaking the strips of tree bark which had been tied around the central core of welded-together bits of old trampoline.

The moss could drink the water and become brilliant green and spongy.

It was working so well that no water was squirting out anywhere at all.

Obviously we will have to make some adjustments as we carry on with it, because it will turn out that some bits of moss are not getting any water, and others are being soaked, but it is going to work, it will be fine, we are going to have a magically opulent conservatory, and everything will be wonderful.

It turned out that a glass of wine worked far better for my sore fingers than Germolene and plasters, which is why I have managed to tell you so much.

I am going to go downstairs and have another.