Saturday

1 cork + 1 clingfilm inner = 1 projectile weapon

Picked up the van. Bud had a practice kangaroo in the deserted industrial estate before going out on the adult roads. Took the old mattress and assorted rubbish to Paulsgrove tip - I threw my old plastic lawnmower, some Hi-Fi and so forth into the skips unmolested by the Health and Safety police.

Made it to Dorset at the first attempt and toured the estate assessing the work to be done.

There is a wooden trolley full of letter bricks promised to Baby Edward of Poppy that was left over from when I was a toddler. I spent hours running to and fro with it going neenaw neenaw: there's approx 30 yards between the lounge fireplace and the kitchen door so plenty of space for demonstrating my own Doppler effect.

Grandma's secret jamjar collection

On the triage tour of the garden and outhouses it was not long before we had identified some areas of concern.

Behind the jamjar collection (several boxes, several bags and a big pile of those wire basket things from at least 4 different fridges, all full of assorted jamjars, all washed, with original lids, then left in the 2nd outhouse for 20 years so the lids had rusted solid) we discovered the secret jamjar collection which was housed in a cupboard the Hobbits had bought for Bud in 1980. Total number of jamjars: 352.

What do you keep in YOUR fridge?

Following on from that we went outside. In outhouse #3 was a stack of panes of glass (narrowly avoid causing avalanche here) which turned out to be from the old greenhouse (replaced 10 years ago, but nothing wrong with holding spares), the greenhouse before it (pre-1986) and the legendary unknown building of Avalon (no further details, but it had 3 doors, all glass). This pile made for an entire tip trip. Outside we found one of the dead fridges about which we have heard so much. Within was the secondary plant pot collection (as opposed to the drifts of pots behind it and in the wheelbarrow shed).