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… 🙂