Well we have started on the plot at last and between rain of Noah’s Ark proportions we have managed to get the Foundations complete. I bought a time lapse camera a Brino Garden Watch which is good but played up on me for the first few days. new batteries anad a reading of the instructions have helped. I have uploaded some files to YouTube. they are quite good fun but it is difficult to ensure the camera faces exactly the right way! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klF_0rtAPss
The groundworkers Eddie and Graham (Expert Excavations) rang on the morning of Wed 11th July “By the way, we are starting today”. Now normally this would not be an issue but as we were just about to go away ourselves for 3 days there was a arrrrgh moment. At least I had cleared away all of the junk that was lying about, the wall was down, BT duct in and line moved and had moved the container so it was out of the way (so I thought).
The first days were devoted to clearing off the topsoil, levelling the back of the garden and putting in some hardcore for a roadway on and off. Billy Walker came out on Sunday to mark out the site ready for the dig.
Unfortunately they did not get quite as far as they might have so that the mesh was delivered on Monday and digging started on Tuesday and 8M3 concrete poured. I was insistent that the foundations were dug and filled on the same day and that proved a wise move as on Wednesday (18th July) we had a massive amount of rain all day completely flooding the foundations.
Thursday was therefore spent pumping out although they did get some more dug and filled with another 6M3 even though they got the dumper stuck which David found most amusing. Overall the ground conditions were very mixed with some areas needing only a minimum dig while others went down quite a way and needed additional depth of concrete to make them secure.
Friday – more concrete (6 M3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g_7_uYPdek
Sat 21st July – clear some of the muck away.
Another 2 days (more rain) and the concrete was complete. Cue the Brickies! George & co started at the end of the week and continued into the next. We of course had gone off to the Olympics but they seemed to manage OK without me and by the time I came back, Eddie was well underway with the drains.
