I had a disaster last night.
I was gassing to Mark on the telephone whilst also doing the late-night garden watering chore, when it happened.
The hose has to be plugged on to the bathroom tap and stretched out along the hall through the front door. It is a horrible hose fitting, stiff and difficult. In order to force it on to the tap I have to hold a flame underneath it to soften it. Usually it starts to smoulder with a horrible smell of burning rubber, and even then it is horribly difficult to jam on to the tap, especially whilst I have got a self-pitying sore shoulder.
You can see the next bit coming, can’t you?
I managed to get it on, and was busily sloshing water all over the midnight-dark garden when I realised the water was not coming out very quickly any more, and went back into the bathroom to investigate.
The hose had come off.
It hadn’t properly come off. There wouldn’t really have been a problem if it had, because the tap would just be pouring water into the sink as usual.
The hose had partly slid off, with the result that a huge jet of water was spraying out. It was spraying all over the bathroom.
I shrieked and went to turn it off. I turned the wrong tap in my panic, and the jet grew to a positive torrent, soaking me, the mirror, the carpet, the loo roll and the wall.
Almost none of it went in the bath.
I spent the next half hour mopping it up with towels, all of which had to be shoved in the washing machine this morning., along with my sodden clothes.
Fortunately we have got a dehumidifier, which I left in the bathroom overnight, and by this morning it was merely coolly dampish in there, but it was a very nasty moment, I can tell you.
Still, onwards and upwards, and I think I may have resolved my website storage problem.
Obviously I may not as well, I am a complete bumbling buffoon when it comes to the magnificent glittering cyber-universe, and it could well be that actually I have just spent a pile of cash whilst achieving nothing whatsoever. Certainly the flashing red light on the Dashboard page, warning me of my overstuffed online storage cupboard, has not vanished, and the lady warned me that the site would go offline to have everything updated, which it hasn’t, so I may yet have to scowl down the telephone in a bemused and perplexed manner for a little longer.
Ah well, these things happen.
This has taken up a considerable amount of my afternoon, but I am pleased anyway, because it means that I can now move forward with all of my exciting plans for putting lots of other stuff on the site, starting with putting some of the photographs back. It is realistically fairly unlikely that I will get around to this for some time, but I am already imaging myself as the owner of a huge and multi-faceted, income generating website, and I like the idea very much indeed.
Please do not worry. It is not going to cost you anything.
I am unlikely to get around to it because I am also pleased to announce that the exciting new machine for creating desiccated fruit arrived this afternoon.
This was a bit of a surprise.
I might not have read the website page very carefully.
The chap banged on the door just after I had come back from my walk, so it was a good job I hadn’t dawdled, and said that he had a very big parcel for me.
It took both of us to unload it from the van, and he kindly helped me to carry it down the stairs to the kitchen. You will remember that unlike every normal house, you come into our house upstairs and then have to go down and underground for anything useful.
Readers, it is almost as big as the washing machine.
I was both horrified and completely enchanted. It is an amazing machine, with shelves and – well, shelves. You put things on the shelves, crank up your electricity and the things come out dry some time later.
It is going to have to stay in the conservatory. There is no room anywhere else at all.
I was longing to have a go at it, but by then had already become enmeshed in my online cyber-confusion, and was determined not to leave it behind until I had resolved my ongoing website difficulties, so I unpacked the desiccating machine and abandoned it. In any case, new machinery is always a bit troubling, like taking in a rescue dog. You have got to make it comfortable in the corner and then leave it alone for a while until it decides that it probably won’t bite you.
I took our own not-rescue dogs with me across the Library Gardens to dispose of the colossal cardboard box in which it had arrived. There is a recycling dustbin there, obviously I was not just fly-tipping. The dogs were quite enchanted at the prospect of an extra outing, and trotted excitedly along behind me, doing their best to behave well and growling horribly at every other dog they passed. I told them they had done a Good Heel, and they nearly burst with self-satisfaction, only spoiling it when they discovered a dropped ice cream on the pavement on the way back, and ignoring all of my summoning until it had been completely licked up.
When I got back I heaved the new desiccating machine on to the table in the corner and contemplated its pristine shelves with some excitement.
I am going to dry out Elspeth’s sack of plums tomorrow and see what they turn into..
I wonder if everybody would like dried plums for Christmas.
