dishwasher valhalla

I do wonder about dishwashers in this country. It seems our present dishwasher (oh the joys of renting) appears to have decided that like Bartleby the Scrivner, when asked to work, it would prefer not to. I did what I could to sort out its initial problems. Mr. Jenner had a further look to try and coax it do its thing and still it would not work. He had a glance at the instruction manual and it seems our dear dishwasher is about thirteen years old. It has seen time pass by like Virginia Lee Burton's Little House.
I think of our dishwasher in America and it how it came with the house and had lived a life, and we had to have it repaired a few times, but it still kept going. That thing was a work-horse. I can't recall what brand it was, but it did not let a person down.
We had to have a dishwasher replaced in our last rental. I wonder if the property agents are going to wonder what we do to dishwashers. To which I say, "What sort of things are you giving us?"
Mr. Jenner is going to deal with the task of seeing if this ancient beast can be revived.

So I am stuck with the task of hand-washing dishes. I fucking HATE washing dishes. I can do it, but I don't jump for glee with the thought of it. Oh boy... a fuck ton of dishes to wash. Let's do this.

The weekend was down right gorgeous. I went running by the canal in Bude, did some shopping, and tidied up. Then my inlaws invited everyone over to use the pool since it was now warm enough to use. The kids swam and swam with some of their cousins. Grown-ups took turns swimming/playing with the kids, and then we had tea and biscuits. An entertaining moment was walking back towards the house and hearing this really loud buzz. I looked up and there were all these bees near a vent, RIGHT by the flat of one of the visitors who were renting from the inlaws. I called out my Mother and Father in law and they said, "oh... dear. Bees." They didn't appear to be wasps, but this was beyond their area of expertise. They called a neighbor over (he and his wife keep bees and teach bee-keeping, and after learning a bit about them, I am going to sign up to take one of their courses, because there is some weird grant thingie left by some rich person who pays for local people to learn about agricultural stuff of that nature, and why the heck not. Good to learn how to keep bees.) and he had a look but the bees had moved... to another vent. His best guess was that there was a near-by swarm and that scouts had been sent out to seek a new home. These scouts were investigating but found that this spot wasn't good, and then had a look at the second vent. Now here is where it gets more amusing. He had gotten down from the ladder and we saw this small finch swoop up to the vent (which may have been used as nest) and then encountering the bees, the finch nearly lost its shit an quickly got out of there. It was a case of the bird going, "HOLY SHIT BEES FUCK NO I AM OUT OF HERE FUCK BEES" and it went off towards a tree. There wasn't much that could be done other than to spray some stuff to discourage the bees. Maybe put up a sign that said, "no pets, no smoking, no bees."l

Sunday we lazed about at home. I planted more things, I tore out so many god damn brambles, root balls, and other unpleasant dead plants to allow other plants to come back to life. Everyone was well-rested. Glorious May. Now the weather has turned on us a bit. It is muggy, there was thunder and lightning last night, and there are showers here and there. Right now it is so dark and gloomy but things are gloriously green out. Eventually the sun will return. The snails are rampant and it is a convention out there since the weather is ideal for them. I need to pay down some ash to slow the bastards down. You will NOT eat my dahlias thankyouverymuch.