October 9th/10th/11th
On the 9th, I spent several
hours cutting back the hawthorn hedge and the ivy growing at its base,
where I wanted my path. The following day, I began breaking up the clay
soil. My drill attachment kept buzzing on some bricks, buried a couple of
inches below the surface, so out came the trowel and I started digging
them out. Then a few more, and more, all the way along the hedge. This
digging bricks out continued into the 11th. I ended up with quite a large
pile. They would be useful however, for a wall repair along side the
driveway.
My back was aching, so I turned
my attention to a job I could do standing up, the wonky wall. Since we
moved house, one section of the driveway wall has had a significant bow
and lean to it. This was caused by a branch and the roots of an old tree
in my neighbour's garden. I'd warned my daughter to keep away from it, as
it didn't look particularly stable. Using the 9 inch diamond cutting wheel
to cut the mortar, I was able to separate the large capping stones, after
which, the bricks were literally falling out. My neighbour came out after
hearing the noise and then gave me a hand to dismantle the wall - by
hand.
I've taken a few walls down
over the years, normally requiring a lot of hammering a bolster chisel to
break out the bricks from the mortar. I think this wall was built with
lime mortar, as it was very white and powdery, allowing the bricks to be
pulled off by hand, many with no effort. How the wall stayed standing for
so long is a mystery. By the end of the day, the wall was down, including
part of a bodged concrete and brick pillar at the right end, that at one
time must have had a wooden gatepost attached to it.
October 12th
I got sand mixed into the soil
from the end of the observatory to the join between the lawn and railway.
Next, two paving slabs worth of foundations had cement mixed in and packed
down before light rain stopped work.
October 13th
The remains of the concrete
pillar was brought down by slicing it into small sections which could then
be chiseled out. My neighbour had also dug out a lot of the soil around
the tree and had cut all of the upper branches off. I tried to do some
more foundations, but the soil was too wet from the rain.
October 15th
I had a rest day on Saturday
the 14th and got back to work on the 15th. The day was spent on the path
foundations all the way to the lawn/railway join. Using the 10 pound
tamper was exhausting, but I got about another 16 feet of the foundations
prepared.
October 16th
The 16th was mostly about
laying paving. After sorting the MOT on one of the cars, all the tools
came out and I carried seven paving slabs down to the hedge. Much of the
rest of the day was spent mixing mortar and laying the slabs.
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