Thirteen
Friday morning, and I phone Rob the Builder to tell him we would like him to do our base. I tell him we have more confidence in him than the other bloke wot quoted and he sounds really chuffed, which immediately makes me worry that he doesn’t usually win jobs he quotes on… I’m sure I’m worrying about nothing. Well, fairly sure.
In my lunchtime I go to the house being refurbished on my route to work so that I can acquire bricks. There are loads of them discarded in the front garden, and I know they’ll be putting them in a skip, so I am hopeful of being allowed to pinch a few…being lunchtime, the builders are there. Good start!
As they’re not actually near the front, I have a peek at the bricks, of which there are plenty… Oh no! WRONG KIND OF BRICKS! They’re bigger, open textured and plain faced, which means (I think) that they’re internal bricks – whatever, they’re the Wrong Kind of Brick. Bummer. I head back to work slightly deflated and the girls in the office ask how I got on. I’m nicely into my stride explaining about them being internal, not external bricks, and how that wouldn’t be good for the frosts etc when I can see them glazing over. They tell me I should get out more… I email round my entire office asking for old bricks (39 people, surely someone can help) and Jo’s boss Alison emails me back to say they’re about to start their extension and when they knock the wall out it’s mine if I want it. A whole WALL! WOO HOO! She’s even on my way home from work, and they start Monday, so I shall go and see if they’re suitable. Put it like this: they’re free, so they’re suitable.
On Saturday we decide that we really have to decide on a final position for this shed. So it’s out with the pegs and lump hammer again. We have mum to help this time, and we start at the front corner, where we leave enough room to get a wheelbarrow (or a person lugging a heavy sack of grass clippings) through between what will be the shed and what is already a wall… Then we take the other measurements off this, and find there are three trees in the way. As we absolutely won’t fell decent trees, the angle has to change, and now it’s back towards the compost bins. Which means we won’t be able to walk round the back. Well, not unless we move bin 1. And we’re going to move bins 3 and 4 to allow Rob the Builder better access. So, out of the four compost bins, that’s 1, 3 and 4 we have to move. But, hey, look on the bright side – No. 2 is staying put! We’re happy with the angle, and then set about digging up some lovely ferns which are where the base will be and replanting them in the bog garden. Which, after this summer, is really only bog.
Guy goes off to a gig and I, well I don’t do much really… Anna emails to say she has 9 bricks in her back yard with our names on them! Now we’re getting somewhere…
On Sunday our efforts to get to the farmers market are hampered by the Cardiff half marathon which has shut half the roads. Appropriate, since it’s a half marathon… We take a different route home via houses likely to have the Right Kind Of Brick, and Guy quickly becomes addicted to looking for bricks too. In the afternoon he goes off on the pretext of a ‘business meeting with the band’ (how un-rock ’n’ roll is that??) and I blow leaves, pick up, rake leaves, pick up, mow my grass, pick up, mow Guy’s grass and pick up. Then I get to the fun bit – looking for bricks around the two gardens. I find 6 I really didn’t know about in my garden (which makes it sound like I live in a tip, which I don’t, it’s just there are nooks and crannies…) and 17 in Guy’s garden (which we knew about but didn’t know how many). I also take the cats for a walk (yes, really, they’re Tonkinese and they love it) and find another four… Excellent haul or what! See, no need to buy them at all…
Achieved: Pegged out the final site, dug up the nice ferns.
Hours worked: Just a couple in pegging out, moving ferns and collecting bricks. Loads more thinking about where bricks might be…
Progress: We have a builder! And we think he’ll be ok!
Purchases: Er, still nothing. Actually, that’s not true but I can’t say because they’re Christmas presents and they won’t be surprises if I do.
Pressies: Do bricks count if they’re given to us?
Links: We have links to Shedworking (see Thursday 11th October’s entry) and Readersheds (look for the pool shed photo). Cool!
Brick count: Original 18, plus 9 from Anna, 17 from Guy’s garden, 6 from mine and 4 with the cats so that’s (out with the calculator) 54!! If we want 200 (which we do) that means we’re over a quarter of the way there already. Easy peasy.
Plan for the week: Visit Alison’s house to see her demolished wall and look for bricks. Am I getting obsessive about this? You will tell me, won’t you?
Note to Rob the Builder: Don’t go with the pegs. It’s a parallelogram.
Squirrel update: They mutter! So I can take a decent photo, I have borrowed a beautiful long lens camera from Vincent, who Knows About Cameras, but the weather has been so grotty it’s not been worth trying it out. However, on Sunday the squirrels are amazingly active so I open the upstairs window (it’s a better angle for photos) and then realise the muttering is the squirrels. Extraordinary noise! Too dark for the light meter (wow, proper technical term) so I don’t take any pics. We really do have squirrels, I just don’t have photos.
Other wildlife update: We have badgers. Oh yes. At least two, perhaps three. Something has been wrecking the grass overnight, and I blamed the squirrels, but this week I have realised that the holes being dug are longer than a squirrel’s arms… I left the outside light on and spied – and it’s badgers! There’s no way I can get a photo of a badger in the middle of the night, so here’s a compromise:
Badger:
Damage:
Best I can do…
Colin (next door neighbour – he has ‘lawn’ where I have ‘grass’) is appalled at the thought of badgers. He says he’ll be extra nice to me otherwise I might send them through to him… As if I would! (Hole in fence, trail of peanuts, be a doddle really…)
In my lunchtime I go to the house being refurbished on my route to work so that I can acquire bricks. There are loads of them discarded in the front garden, and I know they’ll be putting them in a skip, so I am hopeful of being allowed to pinch a few…being lunchtime, the builders are there. Good start!
As they’re not actually near the front, I have a peek at the bricks, of which there are plenty… Oh no! WRONG KIND OF BRICKS! They’re bigger, open textured and plain faced, which means (I think) that they’re internal bricks – whatever, they’re the Wrong Kind of Brick. Bummer. I head back to work slightly deflated and the girls in the office ask how I got on. I’m nicely into my stride explaining about them being internal, not external bricks, and how that wouldn’t be good for the frosts etc when I can see them glazing over. They tell me I should get out more… I email round my entire office asking for old bricks (39 people, surely someone can help) and Jo’s boss Alison emails me back to say they’re about to start their extension and when they knock the wall out it’s mine if I want it. A whole WALL! WOO HOO! She’s even on my way home from work, and they start Monday, so I shall go and see if they’re suitable. Put it like this: they’re free, so they’re suitable.
On Saturday we decide that we really have to decide on a final position for this shed. So it’s out with the pegs and lump hammer again. We have mum to help this time, and we start at the front corner, where we leave enough room to get a wheelbarrow (or a person lugging a heavy sack of grass clippings) through between what will be the shed and what is already a wall… Then we take the other measurements off this, and find there are three trees in the way. As we absolutely won’t fell decent trees, the angle has to change, and now it’s back towards the compost bins. Which means we won’t be able to walk round the back. Well, not unless we move bin 1. And we’re going to move bins 3 and 4 to allow Rob the Builder better access. So, out of the four compost bins, that’s 1, 3 and 4 we have to move. But, hey, look on the bright side – No. 2 is staying put! We’re happy with the angle, and then set about digging up some lovely ferns which are where the base will be and replanting them in the bog garden. Which, after this summer, is really only bog.
Guy goes off to a gig and I, well I don’t do much really… Anna emails to say she has 9 bricks in her back yard with our names on them! Now we’re getting somewhere…
On Sunday our efforts to get to the farmers market are hampered by the Cardiff half marathon which has shut half the roads. Appropriate, since it’s a half marathon… We take a different route home via houses likely to have the Right Kind Of Brick, and Guy quickly becomes addicted to looking for bricks too. In the afternoon he goes off on the pretext of a ‘business meeting with the band’ (how un-rock ’n’ roll is that??) and I blow leaves, pick up, rake leaves, pick up, mow my grass, pick up, mow Guy’s grass and pick up. Then I get to the fun bit – looking for bricks around the two gardens. I find 6 I really didn’t know about in my garden (which makes it sound like I live in a tip, which I don’t, it’s just there are nooks and crannies…) and 17 in Guy’s garden (which we knew about but didn’t know how many). I also take the cats for a walk (yes, really, they’re Tonkinese and they love it) and find another four… Excellent haul or what! See, no need to buy them at all…
Achieved: Pegged out the final site, dug up the nice ferns.
Hours worked: Just a couple in pegging out, moving ferns and collecting bricks. Loads more thinking about where bricks might be…
Progress: We have a builder! And we think he’ll be ok!
Purchases: Er, still nothing. Actually, that’s not true but I can’t say because they’re Christmas presents and they won’t be surprises if I do.
Pressies: Do bricks count if they’re given to us?
Links: We have links to Shedworking (see Thursday 11th October’s entry) and Readersheds (look for the pool shed photo). Cool!
Brick count: Original 18, plus 9 from Anna, 17 from Guy’s garden, 6 from mine and 4 with the cats so that’s (out with the calculator) 54!! If we want 200 (which we do) that means we’re over a quarter of the way there already. Easy peasy.
Plan for the week: Visit Alison’s house to see her demolished wall and look for bricks. Am I getting obsessive about this? You will tell me, won’t you?
Note to Rob the Builder: Don’t go with the pegs. It’s a parallelogram.
Squirrel update: They mutter! So I can take a decent photo, I have borrowed a beautiful long lens camera from Vincent, who Knows About Cameras, but the weather has been so grotty it’s not been worth trying it out. However, on Sunday the squirrels are amazingly active so I open the upstairs window (it’s a better angle for photos) and then realise the muttering is the squirrels. Extraordinary noise! Too dark for the light meter (wow, proper technical term) so I don’t take any pics. We really do have squirrels, I just don’t have photos.
Other wildlife update: We have badgers. Oh yes. At least two, perhaps three. Something has been wrecking the grass overnight, and I blamed the squirrels, but this week I have realised that the holes being dug are longer than a squirrel’s arms… I left the outside light on and spied – and it’s badgers! There’s no way I can get a photo of a badger in the middle of the night, so here’s a compromise:
Badger:
Damage:
Best I can do…
Colin (next door neighbour – he has ‘lawn’ where I have ‘grass’) is appalled at the thought of badgers. He says he’ll be extra nice to me otherwise I might send them through to him… As if I would! (Hole in fence, trail of peanuts, be a doddle really…)
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