I think it's time to deviate from blogging about life with Isabelle, you know, to have some form of diversification on my blog. The other day it suddenly occurred to me the various house admin duties/ upkeep stuff which we (or shall I say, mainly me) have to do. Things that are seemingly so unimportant and for some, you barely notice them, but they are actually important. See, living in a house certainly has its perks in terms of space, especially with a garden too. This is certainly something which I don't take for granted, and don't expect the same back in land scarce Singapore. Some friends have expressed interest in getting a house in the outskirts here like us, and when they hear of the various things we have to do, people we have to engage, well it sort of deters them a bit.
Gutters/ Windows
Before moving into this house, I would have no idea what gutters actually are. Until I learnt something from this daytime TV show called Homes Under the Hammer. People who appear on this show typically buy a dilapidated home under an auction and turn it around before selling it for a profit. I sometimes watch through minutes of it before flicking to the next channel, but that particular day they were explaining the importance of clearing your house gutters because they can cause damp in your house which would be problematic. Gutters are the outdoor pipes running across and down the exterior of your house, mainly to drain away rain water. They explained that if your gutters are clogged up with dirt, rain water does not drain properly and thus start flowing down your external wall, which over time, can cause damp in the wall which would then cause mould to start appearing inside the house.
Since moving in we have never thought of clearing the gutters. One day when I was across the road fetching Isabelle back from the nursery I suddenly looked up and straight at our house and realised something. Why are there small green bushes/ weeds growing out of our gutters? Geez, we need to do something about it, I said to myself. Of course when I mentioned to K, he just shrugged it aside because he too, did not know the importance of a clear gutter. Two days later, my neighbour bumped into me and for no reason, brought my attention to my gutters and told me I better get them cleared before some drainage issues happen. Oh right, let me try calling someone over then. I then asked how often she cleaned hers and she said people do it once a year on average. She then said they also have window cleaners come over every month to clean their exterior windows.
Geez, none of which we have done before for the past 4 years. Always thought as long as the house inside is clean and comfy, it is fine. External looks are secondary, no? Anyway I managed to get a contact to come and clear our gutters and clean our windows (front and back). He was shocked at how much stuff he cleared out of our gutters - there were weeds growing, there was even a bird's nest (no wonder we keep seeing the occassional broken egg shells in the driveway!), there were lots of moss... he later told me we filled up his entire vacuum machine and quite funnily, he told me "please, please do it once a year at least. It was like a football field up there!" And now he sends his guy to come and clean all our external windows (always a buildup of cobwebs) front, back and our kitchen bifold door every 8 weeks.
Gardener
I've never had a garden before this, and do not have any green fingers whatsoever. Neither does K. We did try for 2 years however, in mowing the grass every other weekend during the summer months to maintain it, but just gave up at some point when the lawnmower broke down. Some say its therapeutic but we think it's plain hard work. In order to prevent the garden turning into an overgrown forest, I managed to convince K for us to get someone in to help maintain the garden. I found this gardener called Daniel who came down every month to maintain our garden - mow the lawn, cut back the trees and plants, etc. He was a great guy- really hardworking and gave me lots of ideas of what plants he could help me plant for the next Spring. He even helped with simple installation stuff in our house, doubling as our handyman. Unfortunately Daniel was so hardworking and well liked by his clients that he had to stop coming to mine as he wanted to service clients closer to his home. Since then it's been really hard to find someone like Daniel. After Daniel the garden fell into a 'dark period', especially during the house extension where it was a dumping ground for the old furniture, bricks, tiles, etc. The grass patch grew dry and soon bald. The trees and plants grew with no maintenance and we had to find someone in for a one-off tidy up.
Since then we have found another guy called Jesse, a young chap, to come every month to do the same thing. We were chatting the other day and I told him the tall Eucalyptus tree needs to be cut back as the branches were growing across the lawn. There is another fir tree at the back that has a thick rope tied around it's trunk to the fence that looks dangerous. And another tree that looks like it's dying. He then pointed out yet another tree which has lots of thorns, which could be dangerous for Isabelle when she is running around. So then he told me all these tree work needs to be done by a tree surgeon as a regular gardener like himself is not qualified to do so. I've long heard of tree surgeons and have been putting off engaging one as we were not sure what sort of prices we would be looking at.
Tree Surgeon (Arborist)
The UK is probably one of the few countries that has such a concept of a tree surgeon. To get someone to cut down or trim back the branches of a tree, you need a highly qualified person called a tree surgeon. They study trees and are supposed to know how to cut them down safely (for both tree and people around) and very importantly, dispose of them ethically and correctly, in no way harming the environment. They need to be properly insured too. It also means getting someone in can be quite expensive. And it doesn't help that we have so many trees in our garden! Jesse told me he has a trustworthy friend that he works alongside with, who is a tree surgeon. Having no other contacts we got his contact Lee to come down to give a quote, and eventually we got him to do our job.
https://www.trees.org.uk/Help-Advice/Public/Choose-your-Tree-Surgeon
 |
It was a rainy day, not great for these guys.
I tried to capture a before shot of the garden |
 |
| Lee climbing up the Eucalyptus tree |
 |
Look at that eucalyptus branch on the ground.
Down with a swipe of his deafening chainsaw. |
 |
| Work in progress |
 |
| Still work in progress |
 |
| Filling up his van/ truck with all the tree bits |
The guys took about 4h work in total and now our garden does look like it has opened up and the grass can get more sunlight.
What's new?
Our current headache is the dishwasher drainage problem which actually, I'm too tired to blog about now. We are in the midst of finding a good plumber to come and fix our kitchen sink drainage system. It is currently causing our dishwasher to not drain properly. I probably will blog about it once we have fixed the problem.
I hope you found this post interesting. Something different from my usual! And... wish us luck in finding a plumber!
Comments