Skill

I'm in total awe of people who can do precision work with hefty machinery. Compared to an HGV driver reversing round a corner into a space that's 30cm wider than their wing mirrors this was a doddle but I still loved watching my patio slabs arriving over the back wall. Then two tons of sand and three tons of sub-base. All neatly piled up in the right order ready to be barrrowed to the back of the house.

The work started late this morning because five of the landscapers' vehicles were broken into last night but they got going fairly cheerfully. My contribution to the morning was to finish moving a brick pile out of their way (see extra here for where I started a week ago and second extra today for where I've got to). I meant to do it all a fortnight ago but the incessant rain stopped me mid-way through: pushing a heavy wheelbarrow through claggy mud is no fun. At least this morning it wasn't raining. 

I don't know how I have ended up after the house-building work has finished with a brick pile larger than the one I started with.* The best of them will get used when the builders return in January to fill the gap at the end of the garden - the neighbours who granted me access three years ago are getting pretty fed up with how long this has all been going on. The worst of them will dissolve into the clay and, I hope, break it up a bit.

An extra for anyone else who shares my admiration of this sort of work.

*Edit: Just realised that  they are probably the bricks from the old crumbly extension that was demolished.