The weather man...said clear today...

Finley and I tractor driving.

 The weather is showing signs of improvement although we are still getting more than our share of rain really.  Apparently summer may be next week.

Managing to avoid any obstacles. 

On Saturday we had Finley for the day, he is a real handful and because of his deafness it's no good shouting for him if he can't see you because he doesn't hear you.

We did however manage to get all the grass cut several times, he doesn't seem to like straight lines and keeps tugging the sterring wheel first left then right.  That didn't really matter because it had already been cut properly when he started.  Avoiding hitting the caravan or cars was the only reason he's not doing it on his own, note the ear defenders in the first photo, he wouldn't take them off all day.

John with Finley, Melissa and Jessica.

 John came down later in the day with Melissa and Jessica so the three of them had a couple of hours chasing about the paddock.  Excuse Johns headgear it's my hat which Finley insisted on John wearing.  On John's advice I decided that I would rebuild my computer which has been "blue screening" for some time now.  Very time consuming though when all the updates and service packs for Vista and Office have to come over the slow dongle link here.  Finally finished on Tuesday thank god, I'm lost without my computer.  I was considering getting a new one but I want to wait until Windows 8 is out, stable and bundled with new machines.

Mad rush to save 2000 + Lts of fuel.

The offending fracture.

Mid morning yesterday I had a visit from Andrew, the tenant in our house.  He said he could smell heating oil and he thought the tank must be leaking.  He had just filled up the tank so there was more than two tonnes of oil in there.  On inspection the Tank which is only eleven years old had started to split halfway

 up.  I had visions of having oil all over and the Environment Agency getting involved as they are very keen with spillages now.  Rob the farmer next door lent me the use of a couple of thousand litre tanks to off load the oil before the rent got any larger.  He also gave me the use of a hand pump to get the stuff out.  Fortunately I discovered that after pumping the pipe full syphoning started to happen.  I didn't fancy pumping two tonnes of oil by hand!  He came back later with a twelve vault submersible pump so I set both of them going at once and in a couple of hours had transferred enough oil to get the tank below the leakage point.
You now have to have bunded tanks which means they are a tank within a tank to capture any spillage.  So I have had to order a new one to replace the damaged one as my insurance only covers the damage done not the vessel itself.  £1200+ lighter now so I am pleased that we have not gone down to the Olympics like we had planned to do starting today as it happens.  Hope the rest of our stay here is cheaper!