Not a lot got done today as it was too wet. But there's lots of leaves that need clearing.
Most are from next door's silver birches, though there are a few from the wisterias.
If it's dry tomorrow, I'll get my Grizzley garden vac out to clear them.
I'll also strip these, down the side of the house, as they are mostly yellow now,
There's a lot of wisteria leaves still to come down.
This is the azalea I put here in mid summer in its plastic pot, which was originally on the patio. I took it out of the pot and planted in the earth.
I checked the second and third hedgehog houses, there were no occupants, the one that was near the back fence was a bit damp inside, although it doesn't leak. As it's permanently in the shade, I wasn't surprised. I cleaned them both out and they are now in a corner of the 8ft x 8ft "freezer room," in the back of the garage, where they will both dry out. It's a bit crowed in there with two freezers, four garden chairs two loungers, two spare golf bags, a spare golf trolley a spare set of clubs and a kitchen high chair. Plus the acer palmatum Taylor and from today, the lilac in its tub. It has a lot of nice fat buds on it. It survived last winter on the patio, but I'm not taking a chance this year.
I've turned off the water supply to the garage and garden. Last time I didn't I had two burst pipes under the basin and the fifty-year old water heater burst an internal pipe. The heater I have now has a "frost stat." I can turn the water on as and when I require it during the cold months.
For the jukeboxes in the tea-house, I've taken their heaters off the timers and they are now on 24/7. They are only 60w greenhouse heaters, so don't use much electricity. But they, with the insulated covers will stop them getting damp. I "turned them both over" this afternoon, gave their mechanisms some use by playing a few records. They both worked fine.
I took the new to me Leak 3400 tuner/amp up to Bolton this morning for the guy to check out the few faults it has. He is retired now, but still does these sort of repairs.
He has a wealth of experience of vintage audio and "can use a soldering iron." He works from his small end terraced house, so there's no big overheads, so it won't cost as much as it would taking to a high street retailer that "does repairs."