Bogs and Blogs - Monday October 29th 2007

Rainy cloudy day today. Decided to do our trip to the Scarriff tip/re-cycling place before we head back to the UK for 3 weeks on Thursday. Loaded up the car, set off, after about 10 minutes we realised it's a bank holiday Monday in Ireland today, so the tip will be closed! Turned round and, rather than heading home, went on to Gort to fill up with fuel for Thursday's trip. Visited the brand new Lidl store, very exciting! Then a quick trip into Supermac's for coffee and a warm muffin with ice cream. Mmmmm.

Back home, in time to do a bit of gardening before it got dark. I dug up the dahlia corms ready for winter storage and was about to plant some black tulip bulbs when Jim appeared with a very worried look on his face. Could I poor a bowl of water down our loo? It appeared to be blocked. AAAAH! We are not connected to the sewage system, but have a septic tank. There is an 'inspection pit' where you can see whether it's flowing properly, situated near the tank itself. When I poured in the water and flushed, no water appeared in the pit. Problem.

THEN Jim discovered that just outside the toilet, on the ground outside, is what looks like a paving slab in the concrete. He lifted it up. Horror of horrors, his gaze was met by several floating poos, much paper and the most ghastly smell one could imagine. I volunteered to scoop out the offending matter, but Jim valiantly offered and he didn't have to do so twice! I fetched the reserve pair of new black sturdy Marigolds and a bucket. Scoop scoop, slop slop into the bucket. The smell made us both feel like hurling, and I don't mean the Irish game. I then found a suitable stick and it was poked and prodded down the pipe. A sort of squelching noise indicated that the blockage was freed. Back inside, poured in another bowl of water and, whoosh, away it all went. 'We can do poo' I said to Jim! Well, you have to laugh. I decided not to take any photos of today's events.....

This country life does have its limits! We both felt a bit queasy for a while, so it was much later we decided to have dinner! It was too dark to continue with any gardening, so the bulb planting will have to wait until tomorrow.

I have found one or 2 of my old acting friends on Facebook today, which is great. I felt as though that part of my life had disappeared, almost to the point of not having happened. It's been great to renew friendships and chat about acting again. It was once such a huge part of my life.

Sadly my daughter has a friend who is currently in hospital in the ITU. She has cancer and now has an infection and I gather the next 24 hours will be crucial. Miserable news.

Off now to try and knit some more of the damned pockets for the never ending Advent Calendar project. I can't believe how long it's taking me. Maybe I should do it for next Christmas.