It was a bank holiday today ...

... well, actually it wasn't. But seeing as the Bank Holiday was Sunday I normally take the next day off. But not today though - I was busy.

After the usual couple of hours on the computer I made a start on the water butts again and they are finished for now - until the next revision. You can see the taps at the back of each of the butts and the drainage tap in the middle in case I need to drain the back one for cleaning purposes. But I'm not at all impressed with the quality of the Brico Depot tap connector - you can see how much it has kinked with just a simple tightening. I'm going to have to change that for something decent.

At the moment I have it switched so that it will just fill the rear tank. Then I can chack that for leaks, then switch it into the connecting system to check that for leaks, and then let it into the front tank.

I also made a new settling chamber and a puzzolane and sand filter chamber and they are in position screwed to the side of the verandah. The settling chamber is about 6 time bigger than the last one and uses 100mm pipe rather than 80mm and so there should be enough room in there even in a heavy rain to store the water as it percolates through the filter.

And in a departure from tradition, I've taken out the plastic bowl filter from inside the tank and replaced it with another internal settling chamber made of 100mm pipe. It is of course inside the rear tanks and sealed at the top and bottom, with a 40mm pipe from the filter that goes inside it. The water that passes through the filter falls into the internal settling chamber where any particle that manages to get that far can simply fall to the bottom, and the water will rise up inside the chamber and eventually oveflow it into the tank.

What I shall do eventually, when I find my missing steel mesh (which could be anywhere) is to fill that full of sand and use it as a sand filter. It's all complicated stuff.

But I wasn't alone when I was working on the tanks - I had company.

I've no idea what it is as I'm useless at flora and fauna, but it lives in a burrow at the side of the barn and kept on popping its head out to eat some clover and so on. If you have any ideas what it might be, let me know. But it was interesting anyway, and it wasn't all that scared of a human presence.

It wasn't the only bit of wildlife that I saw today either. The fox that loiters about around here was out and about hunting in the field next door. He's a beautiful creature - I don't know how it is that people can hunt animals like that. It really beats me.

Anyway, tomorrow we are recording, and I'm hoping that it rains so that I can try out the new tank system.