The Elves and the Shoemaker have really got me puzzled. Not the least of it has been that with everybody home I could do with a team of elves to come in at night and do a bit of a spruce up, finish off the washing, clean the kitchen really thoroughly and do the bathroom before they troop out, weary but exhilerated by their good deeds, in the early hours of the morning. They have yet to appear.
So I'm flinging out the chores in all directions only to find out that some things are 'not my job' or there is some unwritten rule that if I have done one thing then it is a mysterious other's turn.
Fortunately we have a building project on the go sufficient to keep all hands busy and make the most of our real, live, on-hand labour force; the best kind.
The 'Big Dig' began on Monday with all hands cheerfully harnessed to the pick, shovel, or wheelbarrow. I have enough concrete debris to build all the little walls I want and to crazy pave the top path and fill it in with concrete crumbs. These steps were under the ramp.
The top soil is going to need a place where it can be piled up, while I work at assimilating it. Some of the clay has a home 10 minutes away on the back of a trailer, some may have to be rehoused on the section.
I had a pile of plastic milk bottles full of water around my courgettes to add a bit of warmth. I think it helped in an ugly way.
Well I am having a bit of a war on plastic in the garden at the minute, plastic pots seem to multiply, and I'm constantly retrieving little pieces of plastic, lots of sellotape from all the cardboard boxes that get thrown on the compost heap, shreds of blue stuff off disintegrating tarpaulins...
So I will see how the little concrete wall goes to warm the courgette's toes...
Picked some of the gooseberries and realised just how shallow their roots are. I know, a small concrete buffer to hold in the soil and mulch, tra la la. Incidentally I picked 5 lbs off the first bush and 8 lb 7oz off the second. At 2lbs to a crumble or a shortcake, and with 3 large bushes and 2 small ones, I calculate 1 hot gooseberry pudding a month for the year. Maths questions were never this interesting.
Top and tailed 'em and bundled them into the freezer.
Oh here we are, below, an aerial view. Milk bottles waiting to be marched off to the wheelie bin, concrete galore up the fence line.
The boys are digging out the bank below which has been promised enough retaining to not need a permit, some foundations, then the container which is patiently waiting to be delivered and turned into a workshop for B. He is going to clad it with wood and put in windows and doors.
The adventure has begun.
