the garden project – days 2 and 3 (theres a rat in mi garden what am me gonna do!?)
I said I’d post something every day but that did seem a bit over the top, and in all honesty the picture after day 2 didn’t look that different from day one anyway so it seemed a bit pointless posting them up last night!
Anyway, here is what I’ve been up to on days 2 and 3.
Tuesday (day 2)
Welcome children! The word of the day today is…
HEAVY
Honestly, I was seriously considering changing the name of this post series to “Project back f*ck”.
Today I had to:
- Lift all the wood from the front and back garden into a hire van.
- Pick up 1.7 Tonnes of Sharp sand and Ballast and transport it to the back garden using my rather puny upper body strength and a wheelbarrow.
I know it doesn’t look that much, but this is half of the 1.7 tonnes (850kg), seeing as the transit van can only hold 900kg! I did ask how accurate those maximum load ratings are, thinking they’d build in a large safety margin, but seeing how far the van dipped to the floor with just one palette on there made me realise that it’s pretty accurate! This van was lowered big time! So anyway, I had to make two trips. Thank god for the fork lift truck at Wickes for actually lifting it into the van for me, that’s all I can say here!
The bags of stuff in the back garden, I could barely stand while I took this photo 🙂
- Eat this for lunch 🙂
Standard workman’s lunch… hehe.
- Move the sleeper flower bed in the middle of the garden to make way for the patio.
- Smash up the planter at the end of the garden and redistribute the mud.
- Dig out some horrendous tree/weed that seems to have roots underneath pretty much the whole of the garden.
- Start to dig out the area for the base.
Here is an end of day 2 picture:
Wednesday – day 3
The word(s) of the day today are unfortunately:
GRINDING HALT (followed very closely by HEAVY!)
OK… I am slightly over exaggerating here but progress has been slow today especially compared to the first two days where I feel I smashed it out of the park.
Today I:
- Dropped TFS Jr over at Grandmas house (Mrs T is working today).
- Ran to Homebase to pick up a laser level and then Screwfix on the way home (3 mile run… just what you need when you are already totally banjaxed!!).
- Chilled for about an hour as… well… see above comment about my current state of banjaxation.
- Continued digging out the base area.
Mud, Mud! Glorious mud!
- Smashed up and removed the concrete blocks (OMG these were heavy) currently in the place where the patio is going to be, and then built a nice concrete block tower with them.
Try playing Jenga with these!
Erm… that’s about it. I am a little bit disappointed but with less time and an unwilling body today I guess I’ve still made fairly good progress. I am hoping I will wake up with renewed vigour tomorrow and with no other time distractions have another really good day.
Here is an end of day 3 picture, as you can see there is still lots more to dig out and get the base in before I can even start to lay the patio, which is probably looking like it’s going to be Sunday now as I have Friday and most of Saturday off for other fun stuff.
Here is an update on the spending table:
| Where? | What? | Cost? |
| B&Q | Patio slabs 20sq.m | £628.00 |
| Screwfix | Titan Angle Grinder | £29.99 |
| Soft Handled Trowel Set 6Pc | £14.99 | |
| Site Optimus Gel Knee Pads | £15.99 | |
| Flexi Tubs Yellow Pack of 2 | £18.99 | |
| Ear Defenders 29.8dB SNR | £5.99 | |
| Rubber Mallet 24oz | £6.49 | |
| Wickes | Sharp sand bags x 34 | £54.06 |
| Ballast bags x 34 | £64.26 | |
| Cement x 3 | £14.25 | |
| Jewsons | Compactor Hire 2 days | £37.80 |
| Van hire place | Van hire 1 day | £39.50 |
| Total | £930.31 |
That wraps things up for now!
Oh wait! I forgot to tell you about the rat!
Unfortunately I can’t provide a picture of it; he/she is a very rapid rodent!
But yea, I guess it must have lived under the decking as we’ve never seen it before, but since I ripped it up we’ve seen it a few different times. I’m looking for a humane trap so if anyone has any recommendations let me know? Cheers!
See you all tomorrow for this weeks final update, here is UB40 to play us out… 🙂
Hi TFS,
Ah that explains what happened yesterday – slacking 😉
Seriously though I like the look of the lunch. I mean the good DIY you are doing.. 😉
Seriously though great work on getting through that, but from a really selfish POV I love watching this knowing that it reminds me why I would pay someone to do this – I am clearly just too lazy!
On that rat… afraid I have no idea, I know mice will go into traps with nutella in it, but rats are out of my range, sorry!
Looking forward to seeing how it goes!
Cheers,
FiL
Hi FiL,
“it reminds me why I would pay someone to do this ” – It’s the two sides of the same coin from my point of view. You either go out to work and then pay someone to do it or you do it yourself and don’t have to work so much. I’ve obviously gone for option two here…
Now financially it might be better in the short term to go with option one especially if you are in a high hourly wage job, but I like learning new stuff and seeing if I can do things, so long term I think for me option two is the way to go with these things. And it’s great exercise to boot… sure beats sitting on your arse all day! Tell that to my poor aching muscles and back right now though haha!
Mice and nutella… well I didn’t know that, thanks for the tip! 🙂
Cheers!
Hi TFS,
Haha yes it is – I just know how bad I am at DIY, and hopefully I am better at my job 😉 I was going to say I am sure your muscles are wanting a quiet word with your brain on getting them into this 😉
Yup – worked a treat to get them into traps 🙂
You gotta fix that rat, that’s wot you gotta do……lol
Haha Martin, I guess you are right! 🙂
That is insane! We bought some block-brick-things to line some gardens. Probably only about 500 all up, and that took 2 of us hours and hours just to carry them from the front to the back yard. By the end of the day I could only carry one at a time. I think you’ve made huge progress. Glad you’ve arranged for a few days off, you don’t want to overdo it.
Sausage and egg butty, yum!
Wow… 500! I got my bro in law to help carry the new patio slabs through and it still took us about an hour and there were probably 70 or so.
Saus and egg butty makes all the hard work worth it haha!
Thanks!
Read this the other day about a guy who dug a hole in his garden when he was drunk and built a swimming pool in a week!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4808758/Father-transforms-hole-garden-swimming-pool.html
That should motivate you a little!
You must be getting really fit with all that free exercise!
Haha wow that is amazing! Although shame on you for trawling through the DM :p
My upper body strength is noticeably better after just a week of heavy lifting (aches and pains not withstanding). Might try to keep it going once I’m finished – I have a random 25KG bag of baking soda (don’t ask!) that I could use as a weight. Free home gym, who needs bar bells huh!?
Hmm … now who said ‘full time leisure is not the path to happiness”? Is there a happy compromise somewhere!
A tip with the rat, if you’re using a trap – bait the trap unset for a few days, to get the rat familiar with eating the nutella, or whatever, from the trap. Once you’re confident that he’s taking the bait, THEN set the trap [think of Nassim Taleb’s Thanksgiving Turkey Dilemma]. Hint – you might have to persevere before it starts taking the bait.
Hi Felice, some silly sod no doubt! 😉
There is most definitely a happy compromise. I just want to get this project done and dusted as fast as possible so I can sit in my garden and relax and enjoy it. Plus I have 4 weeks off in total so the quicker I get it done the more time for some well deserved leisure 🙂
Saying that, I’ve also had one day off on Friday, and a few long breaks in the days on Sat, Sun and today (Mon) as it’s been too hot to be working out there between 1pm and 4pm! So it’s not all work no play.
That’s great advice on the rat situation thanks! It hasn’t made an appearance since I made this post (maybe it read about my intentions to catch it on here and done a runner… hah) but if it does come back I will definitely do as you say! Cheers again 🙂
You’re making fantastic progress, though my back hurts just reading this.
Well done, friend! You’re well on your way.
Cheers DbF… much appreciated!