All by myself

The waterbutt that resides out back had completely silted up. It was supposed to be one of those things that Mountain Man was supposed to have fixed but never had and I hadn't been able to get any water out of it at all this year.

My next door neighbour and his son had both put their hands on their chins, shaken their heads and said they'd think about how it could be cleaned. The lovely Hamish also had put his hand on his chin and said he'd think about it. The problem was how to get the lid off  because the downpipe was positioned right through the hole in the top of the butt and it was impossible to get the lid off and get a bucket in, empty it and clean it out.

Actually, with the aid of a bit of thought and my new cordless screwdriver (a gift to myself for being on my own) it turned out to be surprisingly easy. I had to unscrew the down pipe and then take it off and after that I could get the cover of the waterbutt off. Then it was a question of emptying it, which took a while, bucket by bucket and then taking it away from it's perch and cleaning it out. It was at this point that I had to fix yet another one of those things that was supposed to have been fixed.

The hose connection to the outside tap just wouldn't stay on. MM had bought a new one (the old one having broken) and when I asked MM about it he told me it had never worked properly and always leaked. But no matter how much I tried to attach the hose and get water out of it, all that happened was I got sprayed with water from the tap and nothing came out of the hose.

I took the connection down to the garden centre and looked at all the Hozelock connections and it turned out that MM (like the man who lived here before us) had bought the wrong size connection - yes, it really was that simple!

Armed with the new connection, which fits the tap like a dream, I was able to clean out the waterbutt and put it back on its brick perch, put the down pipe back up, screw it in and voila... Bob's yer uncle... it was fixed!

And what felt really good was I managed to fix it all by myself. Super proud? I should say so!

One fixed waterbutt courtesy of moi!