I wasn't made for manual labour
Filling in the pond
April 2006
Whilst JJ has been away learning how to spell and do sums, I seem to have taken on things that would normally be considered way to manual for me.
A while back Peter managed to cut his hand leaving him incapable of lifting heavy things for a few days.
Thus I was asked if I would like to help fill in a pond - it only meant moving lots of heavy objects and then filling it over with 3 tonnes of gravel.
Whilst Peter discovered that the pond had been very well made with proper linings and sand bags, I shovelled and Sandra wheelbarrowed.
It was all done so quickly that we decided to go back to Avondance, order in another tonne of pebbles and work a bit more on their drive.
The man at Big Mat did think that Sandra had lost the plot a bit when she turned up early afternoon with the trailer - but you only had three tonnes this morning !
Moving the drive on a bit further
06 May 2006
Poor old JJ - he gets a long weekend, and we make him work for it.
What we needed to do was help Sandra and Peter move the pile of earth and rocks from the front of the house and landscape it down to driveway level.
This was all the soil that we had accumulated from putting in the new driveway. JJ would drive the digger and I would use a shovel.
The two of us arrived over at Avondance to find Peter in the digger having got it going. We stopped for coffee and then discovered that the digger just wouldn't play again.
Peter tried jump starting it, he tried re-wiring it, we opened up the starter box, we phoned Richard to ask for assistance, attempted to hot wire it - nothing !
Whilst this was going on JJ and I just got on with the shovels and started the work by hand.
Sandra and Peter must have the entire family Flintstone living in their front garden, because at every attempt to dig with a shovel you banged against another piece of silex (flint). As Jean-Jacques says - seal seal! (Look up the French).
Never mind, flints were used to bolster the sides of the drainage pipes before they were covered over with sheeting and the gravel shovelled in on top.
Just as we had all but finished working round the immobilised digger, Peter got fed up with it, wired it all back up again and brm! brm! the thing started - more seals !
Rather than trying to work with the digger and risk it breaking down again, JJ trundled it round the corner of the house and parked it for us.
All in all though we have done a pretty good job. The earth just needs leaving for a bit to settle and then we can get the sheet over and finish the gravelling.
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