The Red Mark of Durham

Nov 9, 2014 · 3 minute read
plague signcut down all the thingsvines are evil

A new experience on being a home owner; coming back to the house and finding this noticed stapled (yes, stapled) to the house:

This…was new. My favourite part of the notice is that it points to the part of city byelaws that you’re violating…but not exactly what you’ve done wrong. Plus, you have ten days to fix it after the sign is posted, but the letter that gets sent out that actually explains what’s wrong didn’t turn up for a week.

Thankfully, I was embarrassed enough that I phoned the City as soon as I found the notice, but couldn’t get through to the correct person until the next morning. Apparently, the bushes at the end of my garden were getting in the way of the recently-moved bus stop and were blocking the path. Now, I had idly planned to take a saw to various trees over Winter after the leaves were gone. But I had not ventured down to the back of the garden in a little while (I’ve been away, and hey, it’s not as if there’s anything useful down there); one brief look last Thursday made it clear that the City wasn’t really kidding; my bushes had grown wildly over the summer.

This is all a buried lede to: Ian does gardening for almost the first time ever. This involved going to Lowe’s and texting pictures of various items to people to make sure I was buying the correct thing (I almost bought a few oddities, so it was wise to check with people who had more of a clue than I did), and then getting up at the ungodly hour of 8am on a Saturday morning. It’s been a while since I did that on purpose.

I had some help, so it wasn’t just me lopping over big bits of tree. By the early afternoon, not only could I see the bus stop from the house’s windows, but I could also see into the next-door neighbour’s garden, which I don’t think was possible even when I bought the house last year. Success! Except for the piles of branches all over the garden. Anybody fancy a bonfire?

A bit of an embarrassing episode, but the pavement is now mostly clear, and no over-hanging bushes causing problems for people waiting for the bus, which is a good thing! I do really need to come up for a plan for what to do in the back garden; this year it has suffered from quite a bit of neglect, and I’d like to clear out all the spreading vines and pallets that I’ve inherited. It’ll give Bonnie room for her intended Huf Haus, obviously.