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 builders have been hard at work on the garden. All of the steel I-beams (all 29 of them!) have been positioned and concreted in place. Since each beam weighs about 1/3 of a ton, and it all had to be done by hand as there is no space for heavy machinery, this was a […]
The combination of having a large number of deep holes in my garden, and a jar full of Christopher’s ashes was too great an opportunity to ignore. So I have deposited some of his ashes in the garden, where they have subsequently been concreted in place and become part of the foundations of the new […]
This month’s A Mammoth Undertaking prize for insensitive customer service goes to……. cue drumroll…… BT.com The telephone land-line was, like all our utilities, in Christopher’s name. So this time last year I spoke to BT, explained that he was dead, and got it moved into my name. So far, so good – no dramas, and […]
My holiday already seems a long time ago. Four days back at work, including an extra-long day at our Hampshire headquarters, are quickly turning it into a distant memory. So, before I completely forget about it, I should like to put on record one of the highlights of the trip, Dubrovnik. BA flies from Gatwick […]
As a reminder, this is what my garden looked like before work started on it. The concrete slabs are held in place solely by friction and gravity, and the so-called fence was absolutely lethal – very fragile and barely able to hold up the weight of the honeysuckle and clematis that were growing over it, […]
The builders turned up on time on Tuesday, and have spent the last three days digging a series of large holes in my garden, which the steel I-beams will be concreted into. They have shifted literally tons of soil, clay and rock. In just about every hole they have dug so far, they have found […]
Christopher’s sister, Sophie, phoned last night to tell me that their father (and hence my father-in-law) Alan had died on Sunday. He’d been increasingly infirm for a number of years now, but mostly affecting his mobility and quality of life rather than anything terminal. However, Sophie believes that he went into a decline dating from […]
I thoroughly enjoyed my holiday – more than I had expected to in fact. I’d thought long and hard about what sort of holiday I wanted, and when to take it, and it all worked out very well. I was badly in need of a break after the bid had been submitted, and before all […]
The landscape gardener came around again this evening, to confirm the price and agree a start date of immediately after the August Bank Holiday. I have agreed to pay up-front for the materials – specifically the steel I-beams and 300 new oak sleepers. That is not going to be cheap – but with a small […]
