The Strulch arrived. The driver had the sense to reverse in, but ignored the request to go round the outside of the turning circle and scraped his way up the eleagnus hedge, though he made it further towards the house than the last one. I could hear faint fries of protest from the cab because he could not get out, before he emerged through the nearside door. I found him a piece of board so that he could run his mechanised pallet trolley off the back of the tail lift, and that was as far as it was going on the gravel.
I read an article the other day about the advice from some doctor who was urging the population to take much more exercise for the good of its health. A stroll around the golf course or gardening were not enough, he said. We needed aerobic and load bearing exercise. I don't think his idea of gardening can have been the same as mine, because after the lorry had gone I shifted the entire pallet load off the drive, a bag at a time. Each bag weights 13.5 kilogrammes, so that's six hundred and seventy five kilos. Plus the pallet. Plus dragging a substantial piece of exterior grade plywood over from the workshop and putting it away afterwards. Shifting approximately eleven times your own bodyweight in materials before teatime counts as load bearing and aerobic in my book.
The Strulch is now cached in fairly neat piles near to where I need to use it, some in the back garden, some next to the remaining bag of gravel in the turning circle, and some by the entrance bed. I wasn't sure exactly how much I'd need where, so stacked some on the concrete by the pot shed where it would be out of the way and could be brought out as and when needed. Applying it seems terribly urgent. The foliage in the borders is expanding by the day, and it is getting difficult to apply mulch. I resumed Strulching in the bog bed, on the grounds that the thalictrum leaves were growing faster and fluffier than anything else, but really it's a case of everything needing doing at once. I feel the rest of the week is going to be devoted to mulch. Apart from the fact that some cosmos need pricking out, and the recently planted heathers and box plants need watering.
Meanwhile, we have a new postbox. One day last week, as I drove past the spot where the previous one used to be, I passed a builder's van and a pair of workman in high visibility vests carrying a bright and shiny red box. I considered stopping and asking them what had happened to the old one, and if it had been stolen or needed upgrading to fit modern security standards or something. But then I thought that their job was simply to install the new box and they could not be expected to know the whys and wherefores of what happened to its predecessor.
The new box was not immediately open for business, having a bag taped over its head, and I wondered hopefully whether there was going to be a grand opening, with Councillor Heaney and Bernard Jenkin making speeches about the importance of rural postboxes before ceremonially cutting a ribbon, but the Systems Administrator said it was probably to do with keys. It was still bagged up this morning when the SA went to the supermarket, but by this evening when I got back from the beekeepers committee meeting the bag had gone. I am glad we have a new box. I did sometimes walk to the old one, and it's a four mile round trip to the next nearest, plus stopping in the lane to post a letter when you're passing is easier than parking is in the neighbouring villages. The school and even the church in our village were converted to residential use long ago, so the postbox was the only amenity we had left.
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