Cable

Almost every day I do a bit of digging, breaking up and mixing the good soil and the clay, gradually moving it housewards to level the garden.

Yesterday, given that the pumpkins are harvested and the old greenhouse base is now all at the dump, I started to dig a 40cm-deep trench for the cable (just visible in front of the wall here) that will take electricity to the end of the garden for the shed. When it occurred to me this morning that I could dispose of the worst of the clay-lumps by backfilling the trench with them, I was so excited I went straight out into the sunshine to get digging some more.

Coincidentally, the landscaper I contacted last week to visit and quote for a garden path, Matt, who's been too busy to come this week, phoned and asked if he could come and have a look today. I hadn't met him before and I was impressed. He could see by eye lots of things that I'd need a level or tape for, and he listened to what I had to say and made considered suggestions. He looked in detail at the pavers I already have and made suggestions about how to re-use them.

I asked him about the shed base, badly made two months ago, which I've been increasingly concerned about. The hardcore beneath the concrete was not compacted, the concrete is not thick enough, the base is neither level nor square and I fear that in time it will crumble. I've discussed it with people who know more than I do but haven't felt happy about any of the suggested workarounds. Matt was sorry to give me news he thought I wouldn't want, but says that it needs ripping out and redoing. He reckoned it's so badly made it wouldn't take more than an hour to destroy, but that some of the concrete could be used as hardcore for the remake.

It's frustrating on several levels - wasted resources, wasted money, wasted time - but I want it right, not botched.

So now I wait for a quote for a path and a new shed-base. And I need to focus not on this cable disappearing satisfyingly under unwanted clay, but on moving the soil that is currently in piles over where the path will be so that Matt can do some properly accurate laser-measurements.