Months ago, John of the boat told me that he and Isa would be in Oxford today so I invited them for lunch. Last Friday I discovered that the Brother Who Can do Everything would also be in Oxford today so I invited him along to catch up with John 50 years on (we were all at the same secondary school). Then I learnt that my mum would be with my brother so she too met John again half a century on.

I'd asked the BWCDE if I could borrow a sledgehammer and crowbar to attack the concrete base where the greenhouse used to be and he kindly brought them.

The biggest surprise turned out not to be their daunting size and weight, nor that I actually could wield them, nor even that, after everyone had left, I thumped out quite a bit more concrete than I'd expected, but that the shuttering for the bottom half of the concrete base is glass. I hope it's just visible in the picture. It would never have occurred to me that anyone would use glass to form concrete. It does make smashing it up unusually, um, interesting and it's going to be a challenge to carry the shard-covered lumps of concrete to the dump safely.  But - job started.

Edit - I've just added an extra which shows the glass more clearly.