Dream butt

Some years ago we bought a plastic water butt to provide a rainwater alternative to the very hard water that comes out of our taps, some of our plants being rather fussy in that department. With the first notice looking to be reference 1, so at least thirteen years ago.

A green butt with a black stand, a tap of sorts at the bottom and a contraption for diverting water from the down pipe, visible top left in the snap above.

A few days ago BH noticed that the black stand was starting to split. Was catastrophic failure imminent? Would such failure pull the down pipe off the wall? In any event, we decided it was time for action. 

Plenty of butts to be had on the Internet, but not this particular one. Presumably long gone. Which meant that one couldn't just buy a replacement stand. One had to make do with the one that was nearest and hope that the diverting contraption didn't need to be moved because the height had changed. Would we do better to make a concrete block? To make a stand out of baulks of timber?

In the end we settled for the one which was nearest. Not quite the same dimensions, not quite the same shape and green rather than black. And when it turned up about a week later it fitted fine. And so far, it seems that we don't have to move the diverter. A result.

All of which was followed by a water butt flavoured dream, overnight Monday-Tuesday, that is to say the night before last.

A dream which revolved around a cardboard butt stand. Very substantial brown cardboard, the sort of stuff used, by example by the people at reference 2. Made of five trapezium shaped panels arranged in a pentagon. I think tied together at the corners.

Sadly, although the butt stand was very vivid when I woke up, there was nothing else. No background, no context and certainly no action.

PS: pleased to read this morning, in the Evening Standard, of another fusion start up. It seems, one of a number of relatively small outfits trying to trump the monster official efforts of ITER (in France), JET and now STEP (here in the UK). See references 3 (the website) and 4 (the talk). Hopefully more substance here than there turned out to be in 1989's cold fusion, for which see reference 5.

References

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2009/04/cow-chop-day.html.

Reference 2: http://www.lescaves.co.uk/lescaves-welcome.

Reference 3: https://firstlightfusion.com/.

Reference 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtvcEkIb4D4.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion.