Over The Top

I have done some things in my life. But today was one of the hardest and most challenging day I have ever voluntarily undertaken. 

The Building Control Inspector eventually showed up yesterday and was pleased with the progress we had made with the footings on our small extension. (Progress! I thought we had finished digging for this century) He has decreed we need to dig to a depth of four feet / 1200mm... Aarggh, we had dug to 700mm, just over 2 feet. Not enough says he, you have to get below the (neighbours) Holly tree roots. Statutory practise, 1200mm.

Oh my, A & D will not be happy. Not happy at all.. But they were heroic, they came early and we have dug as if for our lives. Spade, fork, pick axe, pry bar and bare hands. It was hard, hard going. Deep down we hit solid clay and stone. Lots of stone. There were curses and profane outbursts. There were mutterings and dire threats if any such Building Inspector should dare show his face whilst we had a four foot trench in which he could be quietly secreted!

To cut the proverbial long story short, we did it. Mud, blood, sweat and tears. We did it. And I am so proud of those lads. Without them I could not have done it. I would have cried and asked to be committed. But we did it.

It is a single storey extension, not a lighthouse, or a block of flats. 1200mm is currently viewed by the assembled mud spattered company as a bit over the top. But we bloody did it. So there.

NB... The white slab at the top left is the neighbour's fence gravel board. The original ground level.
The shovel with the red handle is a metre long. It shows that we still had a long way to go to get to 1.2 metres...