Crowbar

I've got a crowbar at home. I could have used it last night when the neighbours house alarm was going off. My wife told me it kept going off then silent again. I didn't hear it, I was wearing ear plugs. I can't sleep in them though. If I roll onto my side, it feels like the plugs are being pressed into my brain.

I don't know if they got broken in or not. They didn't leave us with any keys or even contact details. They went away without leaving a phone number with any of the neighbours. Their parents come round now and again to check on the house though.

The alarm did stop in the end.

Poop

A bird had the cheek to poop on our new driveway. This was the bit under the porch. We've had problems with birds flying into windows before. It might have done that and frightened itself.

Driveway

It's a good job I went home at lunchtime yesterday to check on our new driveway. The builders had taped it off but one of the local kids still managed to ride his bike over the narrow strip between the start of the concrete and the tape.

I phoned their office and in 10-15 minutes someone came round and sorted it out.
The kid claimed he swerved to avoid a wasp.

We've now got a double width driveway. There used to be a round manhole in the iddle of the grass but it's now in drive area. They've also got rid of the ridge in the drive which used to collect water when it rained. They've cut expansion lines according to some formula. There are 2 lines making a cross shape. They are going to come back to fill it with the black stuff.

The driveway is thick concrete - nearly 2 inches with hardcore below that.

New Drive

We're having our drive re-done. They've already put down the hardcore. I'm going home at lunchtime so I can see what they're doing.

They are going to pour concrete over to make it nice and flat. Currently the manhole cover is raised at end of driveway near garage. There is the metal 'frame' on top of hole with the cover on it. There's also a round manhole to one side - this used to be in the middle of the lawn but it's going to be all concrete there too.

The manhole cover catches on the bottom of the car if it's fully loaded eg. when coming back from holiday. It scrapes, not damaging car though.

Our old neighbour had drive done a few years ago. Whoever did it put flags over drive which raised the level up to where the damp proof course was. They probably thought because it was an old woman living on her own they could get away with a shoddy job. Her husband might have been alive at the time actually. The new owners ripped up the drive so no there's no problem now. They've put the lawn there. The bloke living there has a van. I think he's a gas engineer or something.

Trees

When we moved in to our house there was a 40 ft conifer in the garden. We found out there had already been a dispute with neighbours about it. It had a foot wide trunk and the pine cones were huge, a double handful each. It had been planted 3 years ago as a christmas tree.

We had it cut down. It only had shallow roots so it could easily fall down and do some damage. The removals van was held up by the lorry they had brought to cart away the tree.

Old Jam Jars

When we moved into our house it already had a water meter fitted. The people who used to live there they were rarely in so didn't want to pay the same amount as a family using water all the time. While we were looking round the house before we moved in we found a wardrobe full of shoe boxes. Of course we peeked in and the boxes were full, mostly with new unworn shoes with the labels still on the soles. We thought she must be an imelda marcos. It turned out that she was in the local operatic society and they were for costumes.

She was still cleaning the house when we were ready to move in. You wouldn't have thought so though because the house was still a tip. There were lots of empty jam jars everywhere.

Her car was blocking the removal van and it meant we couldn't move in when we wanted to. My wife was upset about it. We were all ready and packed in the morning hoping to be in the new house in the afternoon.