Step to the beat

We went out with Xian and Jade yesterday to see if we could summon Merlin round Alderley Edge (no luck but we did get some ice cream and chips) so today it's time to get those steps in. I dug down to the earth and at this point have got a couple of hefty 'character stones' on the left to hold the first step up.



Another big chunker on the right hand side to hold the step up. I laid some flat bits of crazy paving between the top of the front wall and the bottom of the new steps.



This was the sum total of this year's tomato harvest by the way, ALL THAT EFFORT TOO



Nick and Dad had been laying some giant lego brick type stones around the top of the steps at ground level.



The bottom steps and top surrounding step are done now, i'll do the middle step next weekend.

No Half Steppin

We got off to a bit of a slow start today, I spent ages fiddling around trying to get the back corner hooked up neatly and Nick had been so hopped up on Brewers Yeast all week he came down with a crash and had to go inside for a sleep.



After Nick had woken up we decided for a change of scene and decided that today might be a good day to shift the pile of rubble to level off the floor.



All the big bits of concrete that we had broken up from the original patio were on the top of the heap, we laid them down first then got down to all the fine dust to do the fill-in that came out of our Inglenook smashing earlier in the year.



Just checking the levels of the big bits.



All nicely filled in now, we decided that it would probably be a good idea to figure out the steps were going so we could fill in up to the edge.



This is the rough position they're going to sit in. Big problem though, I realised that I should have broken up that extra bit of concrete when I had the power breaker. It's just going to have to be by hand...



Half an hour of concerted leathering and we finally managed to break through - that was really hard work!

Zo on the Go

We got back from Czech on Saturday night and spent Sunday afternoon working on the wall, inbetween getting soakings about once an hour. I've been working all day today but Zoe had booked a day off and has done nearly an entire course. Dats ma girl!!