19th August 2018

It’s been a while as we have been on holiday, John has been on holiday and Gemma and Adam are in so the pressure has been off a little bit.

When we returned from France, I spent a couple of weekends tiling and grouting the kitchen. That made a huge difference and the inside is now complete from my point of view. Gemma and Adam have put their mark on the inside and it all looks beautiful. A really nice cosy warm new feeling house.

John and I went up the last couple of weekends although only for a few hours per visit. First time we built a step at the front door and a ramped step from the pavement to the path. John and Rich went up and laid the drive at the front in golden gravel after that. It certainly brightened the front up. It was left around the edges as Gemma was talking about ripping the front hedge out and having a fence put in which is what they are going to do.

Last weekend we went and poisoned the back garden to dry all the weeds up.

This weekend, John and I went yesterday with a micro JCB and did battle with the back garden. A very long day!! The poison hadn’t taken too well but we didn’t let that get in our way. We dug a large hole in the middle and chucked in as much rubbish as we could made up of weeds and remains from the various fires we have had over the last year. We then dug the whole garden over, ripping out tree roots, trunks, carpets, tools, bricks and a whole host of other bits and bobs that will either be burned or skipped. We then went off to Gamston to collect a monster of a rotivator from Johns mate Darren. His house was phenomenal, looked like something out of Grand Designs, a nice little break for us and a lovely bloke. We returned and rotivated the whole of the garden. As you can see from the picture, it was a massive transformation. The two pictures are before and after. Whilst we were doing all of that, Gemma Adam and their friend ripped out the front hedge and carted it off to the tip. That has also made a massive difference and has opened the front of the house right up. We had a couple of visits from Spok, he tried his best to start the rotivator but just didn’t quite have the touch. First pull for JB, Spok said he’d loosened it up for him.

This morning, Sharon and we’re up bright and breezy and went off to Creswell to fetch our trailer so we could cart some rubbish off to the tip. Sharon loaded the trailer up and I raked the whole of the garden with a 5 pronged tool of JB’s which dragged even more weeds and large rocks out. John turned up and ripped out the last concrete washing line post with the digger before loading in to the trailer ready to go back. He also took a few of his bits still there. We piled up all the bricks and boulders as he will take them for his caravan park next weekend. We had a tidy up around the back and then took the trailer full of rubbish off to the tip. We really need some rain now to break the soil down but we are in a great position and the end is finally in site.Read more