Probably a one off, but nice!!

After feeling so ill these past few days and after another night on the sofa with the (please excuse the bad language) BASTARD DOG FROM HELL whinging and crying every hour on the hour, it was so nice to see the light coming through the curtains this morning.

I say (apologies again) BASTARD DOG, but he really is a sweetheart. just likes to know that he is not alone……….ever.

BASTARD DOG FROM HELL

He sleeps in a cage next to my bed downstairs and as my sleeping 2x 700ml sleeping tablets and 5ml diazipan don’t seem to work any more, it is usually around 2 am before I even start feeling sleepy. Guaranteed though after 30 minutes sleep he starts panicking and crying to make sure he is not alone, so I have to speak to him quietly and gently to reassure him that he is not alone.

We will only have the dog for a week though are we are selling him for a neighbour…again, but we have decided, that we are going to give this a break for a while, there is just to much work involved for my wife with everything else she has on her plate at the moment.

Now I think it would be much better for him to spend a few nights on his own in his cage in the boot room so he gets used to being on his own, after all we do not take him with us where ever we go.

Anyway, here I go again, babbling on and totally missing the point OK let me get back to it!

After a few terrible nights sleep and waking to grey skies and no wood for the wood burner as my chainsaw is in the repair shop it was so nice to see what I did as I opened the curtains. Feeling better too, I quickly got myself dressed grabbed my camera and popped out into the garden to take a few pics:

Sun burning the fog off first thing this morning

I went back inside to get my crutch to help me into the field at the end of the garden and by the time I had look at the difference in just 10 minutes:

Sun soon burnt the fog off

After such a hectic 2 weeks my wife and I decided that we should use today to relax a little, so I built a new website for my web design compan(http://www.gardencottagewebdesign.co.uk  ), simple and easy to navigate, but I should imagine it will not be the same for too long, I usually change all my websites around every two to three months.

I am now able to make a few pounds while laying down on the sofa for most of the day, which after all are my doctors orders, but very rare do I get any work, but when I do I am able to get a whole site built in a hour or two, as I don’t always have anything much better to do when the tablets are not working.

I should hear about the chainsaw on the weekend, hope it is not going to cost too much, I was ripped off the second the cash was handed over for it. We bought it for my son to help to cut wood in the woodland behind the house.

As I have no idea about chainsaws or the quality, make or anything else about them, I telephoned a company I once trusted back in Caerphilly where we used to live. I explained to the chap that I did not know that much about them and explained that all I wanted it for was to cut a few small logs for our small log burners. He said that he had a reconditioned one there that would be ideal, it was a Sthil (a make I had heard of luckily) and that it was almost 20 years old, and that he had just finished giving it a service and it runs very well. He added that as the chainsaw was almost 20 years old and still running as well as it was that it would last a lot longer than the newer ones. I agreed with him, it seemed to make sense.

My wife visited family in Caerphilly and visited ‘Blackwood Chainsaws’ where she paid in total £160 for the chainsaw, oil and a new chain, but the chainsaw was £120.

My wife returned home with it and I took a look at it and it was huge, all made of steel with a 20 inch chain on it, a little much for what I wanted really, but I thought it would be fine.

We went to the garage and got some petrol and returned home to give it a go. After over 1 hour of both my son and myself trying to start it it finally choked and smoked and started to work. We soon found that this chainsaw needs two people to use it. One to get the wood into position and the other to keep the chainsaw revving as it does not tick over. All in all the thing is a total nightmare.

I took it to a local hardware store in Hay on Wye and asked their opinion of it. In general, they said that they would never sell anything like this model as there is no chain brake on it, no emergency stop, and then the Gent pointed out that the manual that ‘Blackwood Chainsaws’ gave us was for a totally different model. I £30. I was devastated. He said that I should contact ‘Blackwood Chainsaws’ and ask for my money back as I could purchase a new Sthil with a 14 inch chain for the same price. I returned home and telephoned them and basically if I took anther £40 with me when returning the chainsaw I could buy a 14 inch Sthil chainsaw, the very same model that the Gent in Hay offered me for £120.

After a little research online I soon found out that this particular chainsaw was not almost 20 years old, but closer to 40. So you have been warned.

So if the part that has already broke in the newly serviced chainsaw by ‘Blackwood Chainsaws’ is no longer available, I don’t know how I am going to cut all this up for our fires:

our wood for the fire

As at the moment we have none (