Thursday 17th January 2008
We finished collecting the 5,000 today, they look quite a colourful bunch, I'll try and get a photo tomorrow.
We also netted up mud pond 4 which has held some slightly better koi which just missed the cut at selection.
The land-line phone has been out of order for the last few days, BT or Open Reach as they are now called, came around lunch time to fix it. Something makes me wonder if the company is making too much money, as 2 vans arrived, with a guy in each! One promptly drove onto the mud and got stuck and dumped the van and came in saying he will need a push when they leave.
Anyway, they set about their job, tracking down where the fault was. A wonderful little meter when plugged into the phone socket told the boss guy that the fault was 60mtr away. Allowing for the spare cable which is poked down the back of the office, that made the fault inside the tunnel, which was lucky, as suddenly the wind outside came up and the heavens opened.
On investigation, the fault was traced to a junction box where the cable comes in from outside, so the 2 set about fitting a waterproof box like surgeon and nurse, with the nurse passing screwdriver and pliers!
Once the job was complete, they realised that it may have been better to have got the stuck van sorted when they arrived, rather than leaving it. It was still pouring down! We had a go at pushing, but that was a joke, so I hitched my van up and pulled the van out and off they drove, a little damp and the driver worried he was going to get some ribbing from his fellow work makes!
Over the next week we will start going through the tosai which are being grown. I shall start making my final selection of the ones I intend to grow on this summer in the mud ponds. After a successful trial last year, I expect to use 2 or 3 mud ponds for growing this year, but I shall try and keep the numbers down a little.