Monday 22 December 2014

the yellow brick road ....

Imagine a man sentenced to eternal community payback. Every waking day he's shovelling, barrowing, straining in some way. All he needs is a calico suit marked with arrows. And a ball and chain. Speaking of whom, Jill feels as tired as I do at the end of our second week of drive development. I know that Judith and Roger do too.

But blimey, some great people weighed in too.


Let me just hit you with a roll of honour here:
Matt
Rebecca
Trev
Linda
Tony
Jim
Martyn
Pete and Jan (for cake)...

But, you've guessed it, my star of the week is son Dave. Bless him. I got a nice face full of diesel when pumping fuel into the digger thanks to him. Comedy gold moment - is the diesel pump still working? I'll look. Yes. Exfoliating face scrub. But apart from that, he's been great.


We had originally ordered our gravel from a local builders' merchants but after they'd taken my money I managed to winkle out of them the facts that:
  1. the quarry was currently closed
  2. they could not guarantee delivery within any foreseeable timescale.
But then Roger found more suppliers and the missus phoned around until she found one that would deliver before Christmas.

So now we are string lining between kerb edges and the boy is teasing out the ground levels with the digger bucket to accept 40mm of our gravel. We are using the road roller then raking and pushing the gravel into place.

One third of the drive is now covered but heaps of work ahead in the next days getting levels right before we wend our way down what will look like the yellow brick road to the end of the drive, where our journey will be complete.

And, in a real sense this part of the Cordwood journey will then be nearly complete. It started with four over-faced optimists and six acres of neglect and will reach the point where we've created two beautiful eco-homes serviced by a shared drive and with real gates. But that little part will have to wait until the New Year.

So, for now hurrah!! - the Great British Rake Off has begun. Join us on this lap of the journey. Volunteers welcome. No experience or ruby slippers necessary.

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