Time for some DIY...

Also, bugger. The weekends single job has morphed into three, this morning.

Job #1. Replace shredded garden gate.

Job #2. Fix apparently blocked water trap to down pipe from gutters to water butt.

Job #3. Replace 22" LCD computer monitor, which just this morning died, dammit 😠

Well, dodging between the hailstones, I partially drained the water butt so it was no longer overflowing, unblocked the down pipe from the gutters, and cleared the trap by the butt. Water is now flowing as it's supposed to, although I got a bit of splash from the 12 inch column of water from the recent rain and hail 🌧️ that was held back by the soggy mess of moss in the drain and trap 😱

So, one down, two to go...

The last two storms to come through here, Eunice and Franklin, really did some damage around the country; this included blowing apart (damn near shredding, even) the garden gate and ripping it in half here at home, meaning that I have to set to and replace the damn thing.

The parts blown off by the storms.

Top hinge damage

With flash this time.

Bottom hinge damage.

This gate managed to survive the Great Storm of 1987, so it wasn't as weak as it appears. Never the less, it was shredded by Eunice and Franklin. Gives you an idea of how bad the storms were. Note that the storm of '87 did its damage mostly as the trees still had foliage on them, as it his in the autumn, not the winter. As a result, Eunice and Franklin did their damage by virtue of wind speed alone, and boy, did they spread the misery about.

The other view. The latch was completely buggered.

I have a rough idea of how I'm going to go about replacing the gate, and it involves laying my hands on ten feather fencing boards (thinner on one edge than the other, hence "feather board"), a few nails or wood screws, a couple of brass hinges, a hammer, and a bottle of "Curses, invective, loud and vile" 😆

As to the monitor, well, is going to be a pain in the backside, and likely involve traipsing down to Curry's, Argos (Sainsbury's), or using some other online supplier, such as Amazon, and will no doubt cost over a ton, dammit 😠 At least I can get by for the moment with the laptop monitor, even if it does result in more eyestrain due to resolution limitations.

Oh well. At least it's a long weekend, with reasonably fair weather forecast 🙂