Sand

As noticed at reference 1, I have been eying up two bags of sand left by a gatepost in Manor Green Road for some days now. This morning, one of the bags was definitely starting to drift out onto the sidewalk and it was only a matter of time before some animal broke in and the sand starting spreading about. No use to anyone.

So I went bag home, fetched out the barrow and fetched the sand home. It turned out to be two more or less full bags, although one of them had been opened. So our sand heap under the leylandii has been nicely topped up, to the point of needing to top the parapet back up.

In the course of which I tweeted a coal tit in the next bush, making a distinctive ticking noise, with the ticks perhaps a couple of seconds apart. Unusual for me to be able to connect a tweet with a twitter.

Back out to see if today was the day for the 400th trolley, to find that the Ashmore passage was definitely empty. No trolley to be seen anywhere in the vicinity. Or anywhere else in town centre.

But it was the day for tankers, as Thames Water now have two tankers, one large and one small, at the start of East Street, plus a man and a van. No further sign of builders.

Cockerel calls from somewhere near the small field at the bottom of Stones Road, the field noticed at reference 2 and which runs to a small pond in gmaps. Who knows whether traveller or resident is the fowl man.

The largest rat I have seen for a while in the stream, near the culverts bringing water from the far side of Hook Road, at the top of Longmead Road.

Expedition rounded out with a further brick, very slightly chipped at the corner, from the permissive skip. But clean; no call for the bolster on this occasion.

PS: I continue to wonder at the absence of coronavirus cases from Russia, with its long border with China, albeit in a remote part of the world. Perhaps the Siberian cold is an effective barrier, as suggested at reference 3. On the other hand, it seems all too likely that the Russian authorities would keep a firm lid on any such cases for as long as they could get away with it. Hopefully for ever.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-haul.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/01/horselet.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/charging-up-hill.html.