If only I had a Pool Boy...

If Desperate Housewives, 90210, CSI Miami (that one I actually DO watch), etc., etc. are to be believed, clearly nobody in the good ole US of A looks after their own pool, so why should I have to? Where is my pool boy?

Seriously though, it's not all that hard to maintain a pool... The truth is that we don't actually use our pool much - we'd be lucky to swim in it 2 or 3 times a year - so it does seem like all we do is clean and maintain and spend money on the upkeep, without getting any of the benefits. I know this will change when Cheyenne learns to swim. At present, she will not put her face in the water at home (completely opposite to how she is at swimming lessons, where she spends most of her time under water) because she does not like the colour, shape or depth of our pool. It's not the same as the one at swimming lessons, you see.
Newsflash: Cheyenne, we are NOT selling our house just to buy another one that has a shallower, rectangular pool, painted white. Get used to it!
In fact, Steve is continually saying that our "next house will not have a pool!" Sorry? I wasn't aware we were thinking of selling up...

Obviously, Steve has a bit of a negative attitude towards the pool. Not sure why exactly. Maybe it's because of it being a slight drain on the finances, maybe he just has to have something to complain about... In the eight years we've been here, we've had to replace the pump and we have also upgraded our old dual cartridge filter to a nice new (lower maintenance) sand filter. Then there's the Barracuda. You may remember the dorky slogan - "Barracuda. It's a pool cleaner, not a fish." Yes, there have been numerous replaced sections of Barracuda hose (at $15 a length), at least 3 Barracuda diaphragms (around $30 each), a new weighted collar, and a new skirt (the rubbery bit on the bottom that sort of sucks in the debris and holds the Barracuda on the bottom of the pool - that was about $80 I think), but you have to keep in mind that's over eight years, so not really overly expensive!
Generally his conversations about the pool go something like this, "Stupid bloody pool, the Barracuda's not working again, there's always something wrong with it, more money to be spent, and we never use it, blah blah blah... gonna buy some dirt and fill it in!"
So you'd think, the way he carries on, that he's the one doing all the work, right? Wrong!

Since he's the one with the full-time job, naturally the job of maintaining the pool falls to the person with all the time in the world to do it in - me. Not to say he doesn't do some of it on weekends, but more often than not I'm the one taking the water sample to the pool shop to be tested, I'm the one adding the pool acid, stabiliser or salt (or all three, depending on the water test results), I'm the one raking leaves out and removing palm fronds, and removing seed pods from the neighbour's tree (grrr....don't get me started on that) which are clogging up our skimmer basket. I must admit, it's not my favourite pastime during Winter, when the water is freezing, but any other time, it's no biggie. Someone has to do it, or it'd end up going green.

So this is where the latest saga begins... Tuesday morning, before leaving for work, he notices that the Barracuda isn't working (again) and asks me to have a look at it. No worries, it's nothing major, just a palm frond from our Golden Cane has gotten stuck in it. So I pull that out, empty the skimmer basket and turn the pump and filter on to make sure the Barracuda is functioning ok again. That's when I notice water leaking from the top of the filter. Lovely! Since the filter is on a timer and we don't check it daily unless the Barracuda stops working, who knows how long it has been leaking for! This was one of those "mates rates" situations, whereby Steve used to play footy with a guy who now does pool installations and he got us the new filter setup at cost, and installed it for nothing... so we have no paperwork for a warranty ! It seems that it could just be a faulty O-ring, or maybe a crack in the filter itself or in the top piece. The jury is still out on that one, but since the leak has since slowed to a trickle, it will probably remain unsolved for a while until other major household bills are paid and we have some spare cash again.

As if the pool dramas weren't enough, I then discovered something completely festy. Another reason I need a pool boy... If you watch CSI Miami, you'd know that if there's a death near a pool, pool boys tend to be the ones to discover the bodies. (Then they end up being the main suspects, but I guess you have to blame someone...)
To set the scene - I have a half wine barrel, which will eventually be the new home of a nice red Hibiscus plant (when I figure out which one I want to buy), to replace one which used to grow around the pool, until it died a few years back. Since I haven't purchased the Hibiscus yet, I haven't filled the barrel with soil, so it tends to fill up with rain water, which takes a while to evaporate.

Imagine my horror, when I followed my nose (yep, can't mistake the smell of decomp. To quote Alex, the ME from CSI Miami "I work in a morgue. When I say something smells...it smells!") and discovered not one, but two, dead Noisy Miner birds, floating in the now manky water. Water, which had previously only contained a few mozzie wrigglers, now had partially decomposed birds and other wiggling things (maggots? bird lice larvae? other parasites?) which I was NOT going to get close enough to identify.
Now girls, this is why we tend to keep a man about the house. Even die-hard feminists would agree that men can be extremely useful in the removal of decomposing wildlife!
Steve reluctantly fished them out last night (bin night) with a rake and quadruple bagged them. Only problem is that it's midday, it's a hot, sunny day, and the bin truck hasn't been up our street yet !

OMG, I sincerely hope they don't miss our street (it has happened before) or I may have to phone the council and request a whole new wheelie bin!

I still have to figure out how to dispose of the manky, wiggly "death-water". Preferably away from the house or anywhere Cheyenne might be playing... "Darling? I have another job for you"

If only I was Dr Brennan from Bones... That way I could have it all poured into some sort of canister by some lackey, and have it shipped to the Jeffersonian.

Reality sucks!