If You Need A Plumber, Don't Call Me

Hey folks, time I did some serious updating about all the shit I've been up to lately.

Saturday, I decided to attempt to unblock the bathroom sink, which has been draining veeeery slooooowly of late. We managed to find a three dollar plunger at the always exciting Northcote Coles. So I ran some water into the sink and started plungin'... Immediately, some horrid, slimy black gunk started, well, regurgitating is the best way I can describe it, out from the plug hole. Cool, I thought, until I realised that it was making the blockage worse rather than better. So I plunged more vigorously (those with filthy minds may snigger now), until the sink was almost full of something like chunky black spew. Better still, I'd managed to spray it over a large portion of the bathroom...

To cut a long story short, I ended up undoing the u-tube under the sink - in the process destroying our supply of toilet paper. It wasn't blocked, which suggested the blockage was somewhat further down. Shite. So we made another trip to the always exciting Northcote Coles to get some Draino (or indeed some knock off called "Drano"). After two applications and about three hours of that it actually started to work again. Hoo-fucking-ray. Then I just had to deal with the pools of tepid water with chunks of disturbing black crud and knotted hair all over the floor...

This folks is yet another example of why I shouldn't be allowed near tools of any kind. In the past I have injured myself with pliers, screwdrivers, ladders and, er, well, lets just say that me and tools don't get along :-) And hooray for Draino!

Gardening With A Spoon And A Drill

I have an extremely small "garden" here in the cluttered one bedroom flat I share with evildoom_bunny and schnitzelrug. A large portion of my garden, in fact all bar one plant, is made up of succulents. Cacti and the like.

Yonks ago I picked up half a dozen random little mini cactus's, in pots about the size of a thimble. There are well cute, and thrived surprisingly well in the flat. Of late, they were starting to look a little cramped, some two years after I got them. And schnitzelrug had taken a liking to one of them and kept on pulling it from its pot, so I thought it time to repot the little guys. Which is kinda a pity, because then they'll just go on to be bog-ordinary normal sized cacti.

A while ago (regular readers might have heard mention of this) my family sold our ancient beach house. I picked up a whole bunch of random crockery, mainly because I couldn't bear to see it thrown out. Including a lot of random cups from the Seventies. My flat is so tiny, nothing is allowed to be in here unless it's useful for something. So I decided to make 'em into flower pots.

Now, a flower pot needs one important thing - a drainage hole. Which is kinda the opposite of what a cup needs... So I had to figure out a way of making holes in these things...

And it can be done! All you need is a ceramic drill bit, the sort of thing you'd use to drill tiles, and a drill, and a lot of patience. Especially if you're a masochist and have only got a borrowed hand drill. I managed to drill holes in the bottom of three cups and a vase thing, two others were such stubborn bastards that I had to give up on them. But I found new homes for all of the mini cacti:



Wow - that picture is some weeks old now, both these plants are a lot bigger now! The cups were so tiny I had to put the potting mix in with a spoon... I should write a book called "small flat gardening" :-)