Oops. I meant "sand WHICH doesn't hold water."
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More quotations:
"Special is looking into it, sir. I have the a p.p. as good as I could remember."

"What did they say?" asked Gently, shoving him a charitable sandwich.

[This is a literary device I recognize from P.G. Wodehouse, namely imposing the mood of a person onto an inanimate object. I am reminded of Bertie Wooster, eating an egg and 'pronging a moody forkful.' Later Bertie might smoke a wistful cigarette.]

"Something will turn up...It's the bright day that brings forth the adder."

[An adder, of course, is a venomous snake, but what does this proverb mean?]

The pier...home of Poppa Pickles' Pierrots

...a miniature Bass Rock fashioned out of canvas and papier mache...

a man is working on a stalled car. "The Jenny! Stuck away at the bottom till it's nearly dragging on the ground."

[generator seems likely for Jenny, but who puts the generator on the bottom of the car?]

"Up that little loke. There's only one house up there."

Under the sink stood a rusty distemper-tin containing refuse.
[To me, distemper is a disease in dogs.]