The one in the extra...

...is really not my thing on a stand alone basis. To me it is a gateway to the final gel print picture. But, it is underneath the final gel plate print with the the trees and moon. You can see the lace in the background if you look carefully.

So there are several layers on this. I have printed over and over, building up to the final print painting.

Popeye (cat) and I left the bungalow again (cat in the old dog cage in my car), because of the red cement dust from the cowboy workmen next door. Again, I had the air purifiers on in the bungalow (I couldn’t even breathe properly indoors, even though all windows and doors had been closed). During the night Popeye, cat, goes out to toilet and his white paws and white nose and bib are all concrete red when he comes back in. This concrete dust is thick everywhere. And I had to shower the poor cat because he was trying to lick the concrete dust off.

These imprinted driveways are a menace. Next door has had all traces of original driveways, vegetation and life removed from the whole garden, and the ‘improvements’ of this imprinted concrete covering the entire area. It looks absolutely awful. It is not finished yet. It’s been going on for nearly two weeks and looks set to go into a third week. I watched initially as the actual concrete was laid and I reckon the actual concrete itself was barely 2 and a half inches thick. I would say this thickness is okay for a patio, but I cannot see him being able to park his 3 cars on it. It is going to crack.

The two driveways before were thick, very thick concrete, at least 2 feet, very substantial, as was the pathway to the front door. The original concrete, although laid a long time ago was still perfect. It was not cracked and so no weeds or anything growing on it.

To imprint, in this case, a paving stone design the men were using 3 rubber mats in succession. It didn’t look too bad near my wall, but as they went over to the far side of his property the design has gone out of alignment somewhat. It didn’t look right at all. It looks a mess, and the angle is wrong causing a different reflection as well as the concrete on the far side being a much lighter red.

As I said, I was out today, went to a friend’s, so Popeye wasn’t in the car all day. But he didn’t get on with her cat....and he didn’t think much of the cage in her garden. My friend fears for her cat with living on a main road, so she had this huge wire mesh cage (bigger than the whole floor area of my bungalow) built in her back garden to contain her cat.

The little sparrows can get in and out. My friend feeds them in the cage and her cat doesn’t catch them. Popeye on the other hand decided the sparrows was going to be gourmet food haven, climbed the wire mesh and was about to have a three course meal when he was unceremoniously caught and placed back in his cage. I don’t think we will both get another invite there...

I did show my friend the gel plate printing, and she loved the lace one in the extra. She did some, but she doesn’t like the main blip...too dark for her...

I returned home late to find the workmen had gone and it looked like some scraping had been done of the far side imprinted cement which I said looked out of alignment, and there was a mess of cement scrapings and more red cement dust....

I talked with someone today, a friend who has a little white cat. Her next door neighbour had black imprinted concrete for his driveway and frontage, and she had black cement dust everywhere, in the house on her cream carpets, on windows etc, and her poor white cat came in covered in black dyed cement dust. The little white cat had to be showered every time it went out. And this has been going on for weeks with her, and the black dust still hasn’t settled for her, even though this pseudo black cobbled driveway has been finished.

In my garden all my vegetation is covered in thick red dust. The paintwork on my car has been damaged. It has many little tiny bits of set concrete on the paintwork. I tried getting a couple off with my fingernail and it took the paintwork off to bare grey metal...

My neighbour is unavailable...

If any of you are thinking of getting an imprinted concrete driveway, just remember you have neighbours you are going to have to carry on living with afterwards ...

The reviews online seem good on the imprinted driveways, but also remember that they are reviews given by the person who had the driveways done and immediately after the driveway had been done and looks good, but the reviews were not done sometime later when they found their cars/vans cracked the driveway or when their drains etc needed replacing...

Nor were the reviews done by the neighbours who suffered hell during the installation of the imprinted driveways and afterwards with the lingering dyed cement dust...

Thanks for your comments and love.
Take care x