Eighteen
After the midweek excitement (yep, there was a midweek entry this week) I decide to take things easy on Thursday. So I take the lights down, swim, clean the car, feed the birds, redecorate the squirrel feeder and photograph the cakes. Then I have breakfast and go to work… Rob is coming back on Sunday to take down the shuttering and make a start on the retaining wall.
Friday is a completely unsheddy day – we have a fantastic night out with Gareth and Nic where we have a tournament of Wii games at their newly extended house. Actually, it’s not a completely unsheddy day as we admire the colour of their sitting room and think it would be an excellent colour for a shed…
On Saturday morning, after our late night, we sit in bed with a cup of tea and ponder our day… we could sweep leaves, we could do more to the path edge, we could do cakes… we’re just at the ‘stretching out of the toes and taking it easy’ stage when a car turns up. It’s Rob. SHIT! We rush around like an old fashioned film, and we’re out of bed, dressed and outside within 2 minutes, trying to look like we’ve been up for hours… Which probably would have worked if I hadn’t had my trouser leg stuck in my right sock. Hey ho. We make Rob a cup of tea and he starts on taking the shuttering down. Weirdly, he doesn’t want all that lovely wood, and he’s leaving it for us for firewood – no wonder builders costs so much if they use new wood every time.
While he’s doing his stuff, I clean more bricks, and Guy walks up to his house and back again to get the half moon edging tool which I thought was at my house but wasn’t. We’re always finding what we need is ‘at the other house’. Hopefully that won’t happen by this time next year….
In the afternoon Guy measures the width of the path – it’s the width of a roll of membrane ‘plus a brick’ and makes an edge – and I follow taking the earth out to the required depth and placing bricks on the line.
Then we take all the bricks out again.
Mix up some concrete….
And put the bricks back in!
We’re done – one concreted line of bricks, sorted.
In the evening Guy has a gig and I marzipan and ice a cake for Children in Need, make ivy and holly leaves and throw the engagement cake in the oven. The ivy and holly leaves will go on the Children in Need cake but really it’s an experiment for Charlotte’s wedding cake, due for the end of November which is due to have ivy garlands on it, and we want to practice…
On Sunday morning it rains, meaning our clay soil is STICKY. Impossible to work with, so we abandon paths and shove ivy leaves on the experimental charity cake instead. Looks ok, if a little lumpy… the wedding cake will be better!
By late morning it’s brightened up, so we can start… The bricks are beautifully stuck to their cement (hooray) so all we have to do is fill back to the bricks, turf the gap from the bits we previously cut off, dig out all the lumpy bits or bits that are too high (lots), put down membrane and fill it with gravel. That’s all there is to it… The gravel is outside the pool cabin, up a flight of steps. Or down, if you’re coming the other way…
We rig up a ‘bridge’ across the path so that we can wheelbarrow gravel down the flowerbed instead of carrying it down the steps… much easier, if a little scary if you overload the barrow!
It’s been a while since we’ve done anything this physical and by the time we stop (after finishing the path and clearing the garden of leaves) we are KNACKERED. And very, very stiff… Thank goodness for hot baths and GIN!
Achieved: Path three quarters of the way to the cabin – we’ve stopped because that’s where we need to start shaping it round to the front of the cabin and building a wall to raise the level. Sarah and Vincent are visiting next weekend, so it’s a nice little project we’re saving for them…
Hours worked: Not sure. Can we have ‘muscles overworked’ instead?
Meditation progress: Er, like, when? Must try harder to find 10 minutes to do nothing.
Purchases: Does more gin count?
Pressies: Mum brought us a beautiful wooden duck. He’s called Shed Duck. He probably needs a better name…
Wildlife update: The new badger is coming along nicely – he visits at about 8.30 most evenings, eats his fruit cake and peanuts and doesn’t dig up the lawn. I’ve now finished the film of the squirrels, but can’t remember how to get the film out of the camera… Memo to self: must email Vincent and ask…
Plan: Rob is coming back on Monday to build the retaining walls for the slope behind the base. He’s using my lovely bricks and he thinks they are wonderful. No he doesn’t, actually – he’s appalled that anyone would use old bricks when you can buy nice straight new ones that you don’t have to knock the mortar off.
The ‘oh bugger’ moment: Remember I efficiently took the lights back down on Thursday morning? Rob has said he needs them again for Monday, so they’ve had to go back up. Oh bugger.
Sarah’s tip of the week: If you’re wearing steel toecapped workboots on clay soil, do NOT then walk on gravel… Not unless you want each boot to weigh three stone, anyway.
Friday is a completely unsheddy day – we have a fantastic night out with Gareth and Nic where we have a tournament of Wii games at their newly extended house. Actually, it’s not a completely unsheddy day as we admire the colour of their sitting room and think it would be an excellent colour for a shed…
On Saturday morning, after our late night, we sit in bed with a cup of tea and ponder our day… we could sweep leaves, we could do more to the path edge, we could do cakes… we’re just at the ‘stretching out of the toes and taking it easy’ stage when a car turns up. It’s Rob. SHIT! We rush around like an old fashioned film, and we’re out of bed, dressed and outside within 2 minutes, trying to look like we’ve been up for hours… Which probably would have worked if I hadn’t had my trouser leg stuck in my right sock. Hey ho. We make Rob a cup of tea and he starts on taking the shuttering down. Weirdly, he doesn’t want all that lovely wood, and he’s leaving it for us for firewood – no wonder builders costs so much if they use new wood every time.
While he’s doing his stuff, I clean more bricks, and Guy walks up to his house and back again to get the half moon edging tool which I thought was at my house but wasn’t. We’re always finding what we need is ‘at the other house’. Hopefully that won’t happen by this time next year….
In the afternoon Guy measures the width of the path – it’s the width of a roll of membrane ‘plus a brick’ and makes an edge – and I follow taking the earth out to the required depth and placing bricks on the line.
Then we take all the bricks out again.
Mix up some concrete….
And put the bricks back in!
We’re done – one concreted line of bricks, sorted.
In the evening Guy has a gig and I marzipan and ice a cake for Children in Need, make ivy and holly leaves and throw the engagement cake in the oven. The ivy and holly leaves will go on the Children in Need cake but really it’s an experiment for Charlotte’s wedding cake, due for the end of November which is due to have ivy garlands on it, and we want to practice…
On Sunday morning it rains, meaning our clay soil is STICKY. Impossible to work with, so we abandon paths and shove ivy leaves on the experimental charity cake instead. Looks ok, if a little lumpy… the wedding cake will be better!
By late morning it’s brightened up, so we can start… The bricks are beautifully stuck to their cement (hooray) so all we have to do is fill back to the bricks, turf the gap from the bits we previously cut off, dig out all the lumpy bits or bits that are too high (lots), put down membrane and fill it with gravel. That’s all there is to it… The gravel is outside the pool cabin, up a flight of steps. Or down, if you’re coming the other way…
We rig up a ‘bridge’ across the path so that we can wheelbarrow gravel down the flowerbed instead of carrying it down the steps… much easier, if a little scary if you overload the barrow!
It’s been a while since we’ve done anything this physical and by the time we stop (after finishing the path and clearing the garden of leaves) we are KNACKERED. And very, very stiff… Thank goodness for hot baths and GIN!
Achieved: Path three quarters of the way to the cabin – we’ve stopped because that’s where we need to start shaping it round to the front of the cabin and building a wall to raise the level. Sarah and Vincent are visiting next weekend, so it’s a nice little project we’re saving for them…
Hours worked: Not sure. Can we have ‘muscles overworked’ instead?
Meditation progress: Er, like, when? Must try harder to find 10 minutes to do nothing.
Purchases: Does more gin count?
Pressies: Mum brought us a beautiful wooden duck. He’s called Shed Duck. He probably needs a better name…
Wildlife update: The new badger is coming along nicely – he visits at about 8.30 most evenings, eats his fruit cake and peanuts and doesn’t dig up the lawn. I’ve now finished the film of the squirrels, but can’t remember how to get the film out of the camera… Memo to self: must email Vincent and ask…
Plan: Rob is coming back on Monday to build the retaining walls for the slope behind the base. He’s using my lovely bricks and he thinks they are wonderful. No he doesn’t, actually – he’s appalled that anyone would use old bricks when you can buy nice straight new ones that you don’t have to knock the mortar off.
The ‘oh bugger’ moment: Remember I efficiently took the lights back down on Thursday morning? Rob has said he needs them again for Monday, so they’ve had to go back up. Oh bugger.
Sarah’s tip of the week: If you’re wearing steel toecapped workboots on clay soil, do NOT then walk on gravel… Not unless you want each boot to weigh three stone, anyway.
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