A mammoth undertaking

The 300 new oak sleepers that I need for the garden have been cut to order by a saw-mill in the South of France. They were meant to arrive last week, but have been delayed. They have apparently been stuck on a lorry on the other side of the Channel, due to high winds disrupting the ferries. The 30-odd timbers that the builders used up last week were ones the dealer already happened to have in stock, but we’ve been waiting for the full amount to be delivered. I was beginning to get a bit concerned, as I had to pay for them up-front, and it’s a lot of money to have tied up on a lorry somewhere on the Continent….. But they arrived at 9am today, thankfully before the next forecast storms hit and stopped the ferries running again.

The next problem is where to store them. There is not space on my small drive for 300 sleepers – not as well as my car, two white vans, a trailer, a portaloo and several tons of sand and gravel. And I’m sure my lawn would not survive them being stored there either. However, the dealer who provided the timbers had a cunning plan. He is a local farmer, who seems to have diversified into supplying used and new sleepers, presumably as another source of income alongside farming. Handily for me, he knows many of the local farmers, who form quite a tight-knit community. Specifically, and very usefully, he knows the farmer at the bottom of the hill, less than five minutes away from me. This local farmer has agreed that, for a “small consideration”,  the sleepers can be stored in his farmyard, and he’ll bring them up on his tractor, thirty at a time.  That’s really convenient, and I’ve jumped at that suggestion as it very neatly solves the problem.

I don’t think he’ll have to store them for very long. The builders have made massive progress today, and the bottom terrace is virtually complete, apart from the fiddly bits in the corners.