drive: edging forward

Day three of our drive project completed.

Mum and dad make royal visit to point at Jill

And on target. By now expected to ache, be irritable and ready for bed as soon as the six o'clock news begins on Radio 4. All targets met! Wife too, is also ticking those targets off: after a day concreting she'd expected to be as stiff as a board - which she is but which is also convenient because I have thermal underclothing to iron. It's chilly out there.

Wooden gravelboard drive edging was put in yesterday by Trev, Jill and Linda. Hard, hard work! Poor Trev developed a new injury to medical science, that of 'hammer hand' after a day spent hammering wooden spikes into the ground to support the gravel boards. Dave operated the digger and I spent the afternoon shaking like a jelly as I operated the sit-on roller with it set to 'vibrate' to flatten out the rough roadstone. Whaaaat ffuunn.

And I find it all about as stressful as impending OFSTED inspection at times because I always seem to become the gopher. (Go for this, go for that). Example: Tuesday morning and we're changing buckets on the digger. I undo the large bucket with the ratchet spanner, we remove the bucket, replace it with the trenching bucket. And the ratchet spanner has vanished. How does that happen? Nowhere. After fruitless searching I remember that Jill had brought us tea. And after a 200 yard round trudge I discover that she has put the ratchet spanner in the utility room. Hmmm. And the day of searching for things begins with me flying about like a human pinball. Where's the tape? No, not the tape measure, the sticky tape. You stand there, I'll find it.

And, of course, the Carlyle's make life ten times more difficult for themselves by beginning a hectic day by making industrial quantities of squash soup, some of which is intended for the Notts Refugee Forum. Thanks to Pete and Jan for collecting it in a lightning visit to deliver cake. Bless you!!!

This photo demonstrates how much taller I am than my son

Three cubic metres of concrete were delivered this morning. Concrete kerb edgings have now been laid around all of the Goldcrest drive edges. And looking great!

But hard lessons learned too. I wrote down my son's assertion as we were planning the job. He said 'There will be no barrowing whatsoever'. I wrote it down.

The reality was somewhat different. Actually I spent all day pushing wheelbarrows full of concrete up a slope then shovelling it out. I'm not bitter.

Tomorrow we'll be prepping the ground for our Friday concrete delivery.