Take My Fence Away

Take my Fence Away ©

By 

Michael Casey

Well just for something different today I took my fence away. The day had started noisily when a courier nearly knocked my door down, and it wasn’t even my parcel.

So wishing him well I closed my door. Half an hour later a polite knocker knocked at my door. “Sorry for disturbing you” he began “yes you are disturbing me” I finished as I closed the door. I don’t know about you but I just wish cold callers didn’t bother. Or they all got a disease and took the Junk Email writers with them, a kind of modern plague, where the skeletons decayed over computers. But perhaps I’m being too mean today.

As for my fence, we have a rickety old one on one side next to the entry, its  parallel supports with boards nailed alternately  on the inside and on the outside. However with age it’s developed a stoop, or backward lunge, a kind of limbo dancing look.

The alley  is kind of blocked because of this, but nobody uses it but me, however I decided it was getting dangerous, so the fence had to go. Just in case. So I leant on the fence and it creaked and groaned, not unless that was my back. 3 sections gave way, the supporting posts had had it for years. Then all I had to do was saw the last bit away. Only I don’t have a saw, but I do have a metal saw ,or rather just the blade which was part of the tools I inherited 30 years ago. They gather dust mainly as I am not a DIY kind of person. I can work out what needs to be done, but as for doing it, I leave that to the experts. I once tried painting a wall, only it took gallons of paint, the wall was covered in a  wallpaper that was just like carpet, so it just soaked up the paint, a bit like painting a bear I suppose, not that I’ve ever tried painting a bear.

But back to the fence, finally I’d sawn away the last support and I had a kind of woodern  ladder in my entry. All I had to do was heave it to the rubbish area at the bottom of my garden. I had to jump up and down to break it up, I had to be very careful too as there were 6 inch nails all over it. Rusty nails but still dangerous, apart  from the one I nearly stabbed my chest with, everybody must have done similar such things. Did I ever tell you when I painted my bathroom.  It’s on my site somewhere

www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com Michael’s Bathroom. But back to the fence, I was triumphant when I was finished, then the washing line broke, my bright orange Polo top with a polo scene on it  went sailing to the ground along with my jeans. Another task for me. 

Over the road in the hardware store I got a plastic washing line, £4.50 I was robbed.

I also bought some green twine, £1.60, I had an idea you see. Once home I got my biggest daughter to hold the end while I tied it to the tree and then to the peg in the wall. I didn’t realise just how long 20m is, so I was able to have 2 new plastic washing lines. This is good in the long run as I live with 3 girls, if only I had another bathroom, but I need a lottery win before that happens, or Rupert Murdoch sees this and gives me a job. Hold on a second while I watch a pig fly past.

So now I had a new washing line, all I needed was a new fence. That’s where the twine comes in. I called my girls outside, together we ran up and down the yard tying the twine to what was left of the supporting posts. A kind of net, a bit like the net at Wimbledon was formed. Straight lines then vertical lines in between, plus some coloured paper to make it more attractive. My big daughter has done crochet at school so she was well pleased with her efforts. My wife said it looked like prison bars but she just has no imagination said me and the girls. We hope small birds will rest on the top line and sing to us. It was a fun hour or so, apart from the twinge in my back, the fence was heavy after all. I forgot one thing, I wanted to teach the girls about Gravity, so I shook the Apple Tree at the bottom of the garden and they watched the apples fall, Newton remembered. Then they gathered a few apples and pretended to cook them, the apples were bobbing in a container, Archimedes came to mind so I mentioned him to them. All in all an educational Summers Day