What Happened Next In The Garden

Ugh. Dragged myself home from work at 11.30pm today. It was the first day back, sans pupils, so there has been LOTS of organising to do: updating registers, meeting new teachers and giving them the brief on their 'special' kids...In the middle of it all I was fielding calls from carpenters and trying to track down my pool man...yes, the Backyard Blitz continues.

So last time I checked in we had a new retaining wall right? But I hinted at a dark pile of something which was about to cause me grief.........

Well, there it is. Bottom left, looming large. Actually, it doesn't even look that bad here! It was lulling me into a false sense of security....

You see, the next two jobs on the horizon were:

a) laying a small concrete slab at one end of the garden to take the pool equipment

around about where that patch of dubious paving lies......

 and b) removing the old solar heating matting from the roof

(and disposing of it whilst we had still had a skip) to avoid paying the pool man to do it.

There was some discussion over the division of labour. During a food and wine fuelled dinner, No1 and No 2 Sons, with encouragement from me, assured us that they could lay that tiny little, no'count slab in no time, with no problems. Piece of cake.

I was equally sure that stripping the solar matting off the roof would be a doddle.

They started in a frenzy of enthusiasm the next day. Well, the next afternoon. They don't get up until 4pm. They might melt in the sunlight, after all........
They pegged out the space we thought we'd need.

Oh and look where they threw the old pavers......yes, onto my rapidly growing 'dark pile'. Nevertheless, they raced down to Bunnings and bought 10 bags of pre-mix cement, having calculated that 1.5m x 2.4m x 0.15m equalled.....well, 10 bags of premix anyway.....

And then everything stopped. I think it got too hot. Or maybe there was some confusion about where the corner of the pergola was going to go and whether or not we wanted to cement over the marked gas and electricity lines....

Whatever, the hold up, a week went past. There was more discussion and a realisation that the slab would need to be longer. Then No2 Son dug up an IP (inspection point...basically, a manhole cover over a bit of pipe), right near the end of the slab, but right where we needed to extend it to. More discussion and planning.



Meanwhile, I had been on the roof....

And in the space of two days, I had cleared that sucker.

And now I am falling asleep, so I will continue the story tomorrow......