So in 1987 we moved to our current address. Although the drive down the side of the house is narrow, the seller got his Sierra down there, so it wasn't too bad. Although these days a Sierra is a small car.
Anyway, being a corner plot, there was scope to join a second garage to the original. I employed a bricklayer for the walls but did everything else myself. This included the footings for the garage and the drive extension, and a soakaway, which had to be a cubic metre. That was all fun digging out with nothing more than a spade, but then I was just 34 years old. The garage door came from a neighbour who had gone electric, so matched. The whole thing was a lot of fun, but I don't know how people do such physical work day after day.
Recently the fence and posts which I erected back in 1987 started to look weary. I've only had to change one fence post, which is quite impressive. When I took these down, two of the remaining four were still solid, but the other two were rotten at ground level.
Until now I've had to move both VW's to get the Morgan out of either garage, but I persuaded MrsW to allow me to extend the hard standing slightly, so the the left hand garage is accessible even with the Golf on the drive. This work has been progressing over the last few days, and once again I found myself digging footings for the new hard standing retaining wall. It's still a challenge, and of course now I'm 69, and the weather over the last couple of days has been extra testing.
I also forgot how hard work it is mixing mortar. I know it's tough but what a back aching process! But actually I can lay bricks to a decent enough standard, I'm just messy with the pointing. I used fence post concrete for the new posts, but because of the shape, I had to get 4 fence panels and cut two down, which proved another challenge because they use three different types of joint, which had to be replicated.
So I've been doing a few full shifts, starting early while it was still cool and finishing mid afternoon, except one day when I wanted to finish the wall, so it was 6pm.
The garden slopes so I had to calculate the amount of ballast to level up, I estimated 30 bags, and fortunately that was right!! I removed the top of the old retaining wall with my concrete cutter, which is the most useful £65 I ever spent. But a dangerous tool, even with full protection, it has a mind of its own from the gyro effect.
Today I did the concrete surface, but borrowed a mixing bucket and electric mixer from Son in Law. Again I though a couple of hours would see this done but it was over 4 hours and it looked like I was going to run out of sand at one point. Anyway all that's left to do now is to tidy up around the back gate with the new fence panel offcuts.
I could have got a man in, but where's the fun in that? And I've lost a few pounds in weight!!!
