Author: jma

On May 25th, John noticed sewage bubbling up from one of our outside drains.  We were just about to leave on a trip so I made an appointment with British Gas Home Care for the following morning, and asked our good friend Pam to wait in for them.  She very kindly agreed and Dyno-Rod (subcontractors to Home Care) showed up as promised early next day (May 26th).

Dyno-Rod cleared out our drains but realised that there was a blockage in the main sewer, so they called Severn Trent (our water and sewage company).  Pam heard the conversation where Dyno-Rod explained the situation to the Severn Trent people over the phone.  Dyno-Rod told Pam that Severn Trent would be out to fix the problem.  Everything seemed to be under control.

On Sunday (May 27th) there were strong thunderstorms over Church Stretton.

On Monday (May 28th) Pam came to our house to check if everything was OK.  It wasn’t.  More water had come down the sewer, a manhole had been lifted and sewage had flooded out into our garden.  She immediately called Home Care again and arranged for another visit from Dyno-Rod for the following day.

We cut our visit to London short and caught an earlier train back to Church Stretton on Tuesday (May 29th).  We arrived back while Dyno-Rod were still working.  Again they called Severn Trent, who claimed they had not received the call on May 26th and therefore had no record of this case. This time, we were assured of a quick visit and given a case number.

Severn Trent/Amey came quickly that afternoon and ascertained that the blockage was indeed off our property and in their sewers.  They said they didn’t have the correct piece of equipment to reach the blockage, but that a larger vehicle would be dispatched to take care of it as soon as possible. They also said that the sewage was draining slowly, and the water level did seem to be going down in the drain, so it was OK to use the toilet and continue with domestic water use.

That evening we had more thunderstorms and the manhole was lifted again.  This time the sewage filled the flower beds and flooded onto the lawn.  Since then there has been a continuous flow of sewage out of one of our drains.  It’s worse at times when our neighbours are taking showers, etc., but it never stops completely.

Some of this sewage got under the house and there is a bad smell indoors.

It is now six days since Severn Trent visited and 10 days since the problem started and there is still raw sewage flowing out of our drains, across the patio and over the garden.  The video shows the extent of the problem.

On the 30th we phoned Severn Trent for a progress report.  They contacted Amey who said that the job had been suspended at the “end of the shift”. We were promised that it would be done “today”.  We were also told that they had to work at night because they were accessing the sewer from a busy road.

The road in question is Shrewsbury Road in Church Stretton.  It is a B road. Other utilities are able to access it in the middle of the day, why can’t the water/sewer people do the same?

Since then we have gone to bed each night hoping for a solution. But we have woken each morning to find that nothing has been done. Every morning we’ve called Severn Trent or Amey for a progress report.  Every time we have been assured that “it will be done today”.

But it hasn’t been done and we’re running out of patience. Nothing has happened for over 5 days.  No-one phoned with an explanation, an apology or even an excuse.  We had to phone up each day to get yet another stonewalling “I’m really sorry for your situation, but it’s been scheduled for tonight and I’m sure they will come out this time”.

We can’t ask the many neighbours whose sewage comes through our garden to stop using the toilet, stop taking showers, stop doing dishes and washing, can we?  Meanwhile, their effluent is polluting our property and causing a potential health hazard.

Today (June 4th) I was put through to Lauren in the Severn Trent Escalation Team who has promised yet again to get something done today.  We’ll see.

Gosh, it’s been a horrible winter, with lots of snow and rain and wind and more snow and more rain and more wind.  Some of the shrubs have been frost damaged and wind-burned.  One of the giant laurels came down, too, with all the heavy wet snow.

Spring has been creeping in very slowly.  The snowdrops at Attingham Park were lovely, but our frogs crept in for only a couple of days between freezes to spawn.  Normally they hang about waiting for the females to arrive, but this year, they all came in, did their thing and left!  Naturally, we saw our first newts soon after – devouring lots of the eggs!

The birds have paired up and there’s lots of territoriality, showy display flights, strong singing, heavy breathing, collecting of sticks and moss and dried leaves and feathers.  In our cold garden the buds on the shrubs are barely breaking, but the daffodils are just coming up to their peak

At the bottom of the road, on the common land with the war memorial there are masses of white and yellow daffs right now.  It’s a lovely sight to see!

Today there’s promise in the air, too.  Strong sunshine and warm southerly winds have cheered us all up and Jan and I had tea out in the garden this afternoon.

While we were there we found a Larch Ladybird.  They’re very small and I’ve never seen one before.  It’s unusual because it’s tan coloured and doesn’t have any spots.  I’m not surprised that it’s here – there are a lot of larches, including a huge one next door – but it was sitting on a camellia leaf and they’re supposed to prefer conifers!

Paul’s coming tomorrow and it’s supposed to be sunny with highs around 20C.  I can’t wait!

I’m cleaning up my hard drives as it is snowing outside and I need to get my office cleaned up in more ways than one!

I just found this little animation that I had on my first website back in the 90s! It runs very fast on modern computers!

We’ve just found a couple of badger movies from last year.  John set up the trail cam near one of the sett openings to see if there was any action.

In the first clip, one of our little friends is bringing in fresh bedding.  It’s an interesting action – he does it by pulling the material (grass, straw, bamboo leaves, etc.) backwards with his long front claws.  They change the bedding quite frequently, as witnessed by the trails of leaves and detritus we find across the lawns and the flower beds!  Don’t worry about the video going dark in the last half, the trail cam was running out of batter power. Sorry about that, but I thought you’d like to see the behaviour.

In the second clip we see that clean bedding doesn’t always equate with a clean badger!  This guy seems to have an awful lot of itchy spots!

Don’t ask me what the title of this post means – I don’t actually know.  However, my Mum always said it when something was opened up or because clear.  Actually, she had a thing about eggs.  When she didn’t know someone’s name she called them Mrs or Mr Huevo!  Dad and I used it too, but with English accents it because Mrs or Mr Wave-oh.

Enough reminiscence.  The reason I can breathe is that Paul has been working here today and has opened up about half the herb bed. He tells me that a lot of the plants will have died because there was so much moss choking things.  The wild strawberries, which also came up, were only rooted in the moss.

Over the past few weeks he has worked steadily around the garden, pruning and weeding and digging and it’s really making a difference.  He’s also mowing the lawn more regularly, so that whole thing is looking a whole lot tidier.

You will have noticed that Paul is in shorts.  It is NOT, I repeat NOT, shorts weather, but these mountain bikers are a tough crowd!  It was cold, windy and drizzly today – yuck!  Earlier this week we had the remains of Hurricane Ophelia which brought down all our apples and a crows nest.  Then it rained like the clappers for about 24 hours and now we’re getting ready for Storm Brian which is predicted to bring more wind and rain tomorrow.

I tried to get some better pictures of Paul, but failed miserably.  However, in the one picture I have with him in, you can also see a bell-shaped rusty old iron object.  That is an old “copper”.  These were what housewives and washer women used to boil up their laundry in the old days.  We found it behind the shed when we moved in.  It’s now upturned and used as a “feature” in the middle of the bed, and it covers up a big manhole where all the sewers of the neighbourhood come together.  It’s lovely to think that all the ordure of our side of Cardingmill Valley flows under our garden.

Funnily enough, while he was weeding Paul dug up a rusty old manhole-cover-lifter that some plumber must have dropped as well as an old kitchen knife.  We have lots of interesting stuff buried in the garden (apart from Granddad – just kidding).  The stream brings all sorts of things down – old ginger beer stoneware bottles from the old pop factory in the valley, bits of clay pipes, beer bottle stoppers from WWII, etc. etc. We also found the remains of an old concrete path the other day.  Further archaeological excavations are called for!