Day of the Triffids haunts you too then !
It was the rattling noise....
James
Oh don't..get..me..started..!
So , where was i ?
OH yes , the trees , oh but first the digger ..
On Wednesday , hottest day of the year , i got underneath and finished undoing the big 35mm nut , and managed to extract a metre of twisty rubbery snakey metal rubber pipe barstard from hell,here it is all undone from itself ..
I had to use the Big vice , if you look closely you might see the tiny pinhole ..
I whizzed off down to the local tractor place and ,while i waited ,they made a new one with new ends for 35 quid ,no idea if that's a good price but i think it was worth it .
Came back and put the pipe back together , then tried to insert it into the digger ..
Now , i cannot remember if i have shared the camera down the throat experience i had a few years ago ,but it was a bit like that ,without the sexy french dr , and three very nervous philippino nurses of course .
i did not realise when i went for this test , that the camera , which i thought would be the size of a petit pois , was actually the size of a small taxi .
i went in with my, must be zen, calm as possible ,mind set , and appreciated my french lady dr a lot , but may have turned 4.271% paler when she brought out the alien stealth probe from hell , on its multi jointed black aluminium meter long arm !
i thought gawd if they put that in me they'll see my long toenails and no mistake !
At this point i was surrounded by Philippino nurses , not, as i at first suspected , trying to do my nails , and ask me if i had girlfrenn, but to rub my back and hold my hand , and cradle my head as they inserted a frankly revolting surgical pink gum shield, with a worryingly big hole in it , presumable to stop me clamping down and biting off the end of the probe .
now , being an avid student of psychology, and body language , i could not help but notice , that all these nurses where waving strong worry flags , and giving off a fundamental sheer terror mind frequency .
i realised , here i was a 6ft 190 lb male , about to be invaded with a alien stealth probe , and they must have had occurrences when the victim had hurtled off out of the room , the hospital , and down the road , while till equipped with the borg interspace antenna ! !
i found this thought so amusing i nearly smiled , however , that the last time i was about to smile for a loooonngg time ..
my nice lady doctor turned to me with a charming french smile, slightly coquettish and tempting , hopelessly attempting to distract me from the grim reality she was carrying in her french polished hands ,yes , it was the probe , about 15mm across and a meter long .
i, as i said, paled , there may have been 4 white showing around my eyes , however i was now surrounded by the girlfrenn beauty chorus , so i did my zen breathing and tried not to look as it came closer and closer to my gumshield orifice ....
everything went into slow motion , as she started feeding it through , it had a spotlight on the end , which was nice , i wondered if it could change colours , and give me a disco tummy effect down the clubs , but then went back to my breathing , and in fact got my pulse down to 77 from the 78 i started with , and all the time the ladeeez are rubbing my back and telling me how well i am doing .
So , the antenna for Robqutus of Borg is now about 17 ft in , and she says , can you just swallow , so it goes down the right hole .
this had obviously been a breaking point for men in the past , as one of the nurse involuntarily sank her 2" nails ,in a fetching metallic swirl pattern with a smiley face on each nail, into my wrist , not sure which one because i have my eyes tightly close at this point , and i manage to swallow and feel the invading stalk of death click past my lung tube into my tummy tube succesfully .
did i mention i had no anaestetic ?
Anyway , madamoisselle sexy keeps on feeding the darkness down me , until at long last its all in , i wiggle my toes to see if its in my shoes but no its ok , ,at least its ok until she sexily announces in her french accent ,
"hnow whee joost ave to takk thee sampless yeeess?"
"yuo arrr doing sooo weeelll monseur"
at this point i am able to point out that , no matter how sexy a female french doctor may be , having a metre of borg technology stuck right down you, effectively precludes any sort of masculine responses ..AT ALL .
i feel a weird gripping sensation as she grabs pincerfuls of upper gut and secrets them in the special roberts upper gut samples case , , and then i am relieved to feel her start to extract the devils finger of blackness.
i start mentally counting down to defcon 1, and it's now a race between her getting her finger out ,so to speak , and me doing a runner , bedraped with hanging on phillipinno nurses gabbling about do i want my nails polished too.. or not .
luckily the probe wins, finally coming to the surface , and shining its bright white led eye into my red ,dim with horror, eyes.
so Yeah , getting this tube on digger in was like that .
then connecting it up , with a 4 bolt flange to the pump , which is an ally body, so easy to cross thread , all without taking the front cowl off , or oil cooler out , was a finger twisting laugh a minute .
but it's all on , and once i have filtered the water and leaves out of the oil, i can see if it leaks .
then back to the trees .
Along with the two ash trees left to take down was a hawthorne barstard tree from hell , about 20ft tall and 6 seperate trunks all tangled and very straveller .
I set too with the leccy saw , and my rope and weight ,and apart from repetitively getting the weight tangled up and having to climb up to extract it , it went well ..
and cleared the decks for the next days fun of taking down the 50 ft ash trees .
we started by roping the limbs over the bt cable , and mr C went up with the leccy saw and bow saw and one by one we removed them me hauling on the rope ..
starting point ..
slimmed down ..
then it was time , mr c very kindly did the cutting while i hauled on the rope to try to get it to fall in the narrow alleyway we were aiming for , so as not to hurt the fruit trees ..
here i am hauling on the rope ,doing the easy job ,
while mr c cut a v shaped notch and then a back cut ..
and stuff my boots , it fell in just the right place !!
we did the same with the next tree , and that was it ,success .
here they are ,gone .
We measured the taller one and it was 53.5 feet long ,to celebrate we scoffed some goodness from the local chippy ..
huge thanks to Mr C for his help .
regards
robert