A few weeks ago, we decided to remove our fairly large pond and find new homes for the seventy-odd fish who lived there (we started off with three, but they got pretty friendly with one another). Then we shipped in a few cubic metres of top soil and I spent a couple of hard-graft weekends wheel-barrowing it from the nature strip to the back yard, spreading it, levelling it, replacing bandaids on blisters - the whole deal. Re-mortared the veggie garden wall, set up a bird bath (because the pond was nothing if not a fancy bird bath), fought off three million mosquitoes and planted three silver birches, which I've been watering every day this summer...
And then got a call from the Water Authority the other day.
There's a sewerage pipe that runs across that section of our property, it seems, which is in a state of collapse and has been causing the neighbours a blockage of poo or two, and so now the workmen need to come in with a bobcat and dig up everything I've just put down. Out come the silver birches, my rock wall, the veggie garden, a lime tree - the lot.
Ho hum. Oh well, might as well laugh as cry.
2 comments:
Oh dear! What absolute rotten luck PB.
I assume the water authorities are responsible for putting everything back as it was??
Still, sounds like you might get some quality fertilizer for cheap:)
Indeed, Jane, every sewerage pipe has a silver lining of sorts - I hand't considered the value of that, but the cracked pipe might explain why my tomatoes and chillies are doing so well!
And, yes, you're quite right: the Water Authority has promised to make sure everything goes back to where it was, although whether the trees will survive being moved during the heat of summer is another question. Hopefully, the quality fertiliser will give them a "pick-me-up"!
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