DEAD END

We’ve hit a bit of a brick wall in our endeavours to build a brick wall.  

Preparing the foundations

Using leftover rocks & mortar bits as ballast

Is it dry yet? 

Although we'd carefully removed the decorative blocks used in the construction of the original garden wall, it turns out there aren’t enough of them to re-build into a raised flower bed. 

It wouldn’t be an issue if all the walls in the neighbourhood had been built of ordinary type house bricks as then our new wall wouldn’t have looked out of place but most of the walls in the streets round these parts are made with larger patterned blocks, the sort you can’t buy in your usual builder’s merchants.

 

What kind of bricks are these?

I’ve searched a million different brick supplier websites to find a similar block or something that might be a close match but unless I go on a midnight brick nicking caper, then where am I going to get these blocks from? 

As luck would have it, a chance visit to the landscaping department at work has provided the solution to our mystery block problem. These decorative ‘bricks’ are called Thakenham rock face wall blocks and are supplied by a local company in a town called Storrington, not far from where we live.

 

In case you are looking for this type of decorative blocks

Interestingly (if you’re a brick nerd), these rock face wall blocks not only come in 2 different sizes but also have a clever L shaped block to reduce the headache of producing perfect corners.  We can now link the new blocks into the existing wall to give it stability, keeping it all neat and tidy at the same time.

 

Lots of different sizes & shapes available

The first couple of block layers have gone down and so far, so good. 

 

We’ve mixed up the blocks to randomly distribute the new red ones amongst the faded older ones and here’s what it should all look like once finished.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and building garden walls isn’t the work of 5 minutes so I’m having to learn to be patient and not ‘nag’ – it’ll be done when it’s done says the other half. 

KERB APPEAL

Kerb appeal, give generously!  Your donations will fund a new raised border, driveway landscaping and a plant shopping spree unlike the UK’s foreign aid budget which is probably squandered on white elephant vanity projects or airports that’ll see little use on islands that are too windy to fly from. 

Frontage, like a pair of big knockers, is the first thing people notice when they visit your house so it doesn’t do to have saggy cleavage.  Front doors need to look attractive, garden plants perky and unlike my once white booby holders, everything needs to look clean and bright.  Pristine is the word that comes to mind which cannot be said for my grey-tinged double D’s.

 

There's only room for 1 car on the drive

The front garden is being given a makeover not so much to improve its aesthetic kerb appeal but to save us the £39 per year fee for a permit to park outside our own front door. 

Much of the structure to create more off-road parking already exists, buried under an overgrown hedge, a tatty rockery and an inconveniently positioned conifer.  All we have to do is chop it all down, dig it all up, pull down the cracked, unsafe wall and rob a bank – what could be easier?

 

Making best use of the things that you find

The cost of aggregates, cement which is now harder to find than unicorns and other landscaping materials has gone through the roof thanks to Covid and Brexit making home improvements not the economical projects they once were.  Still there is still money to be saved if you put the time and effort into these things but just in case, I have been covertly scouting the perimeter of the local Lloyds bank branch.

Removing the front hedge plants has magically added almost a metre to the proposed parking area.

 

Digging out mature hedges is not easy

The inconveniently placed conifer has been chopped down and the large rockery stones recycled into a path border to the lifeboat shed in the back garden.

 

More space now that conifer & hedge have gone

Recycled rockery stones into path border

A few tugs at the unsafe wall resulted in most of the blocks coming free quite easily.  These have been cleaned of all mortar to recycle into a raised corner flower bed.

 

Badly cracked wall due to tree roots

So, our cunning plan is to lower the soil level around the existing concrete hardstanding and to use plastic garden grids filled with either limestone chippings or soil alongside it in order to enlarge the size of the parking space. 

 

Aco groundguard grids to keep chippings neat

Extending the existing block paving would be very expensive thus Aco groundguard grids are a cheaper and quicker way forward.  Flexible enough to be cut down and linked together plus strong enough once filled to take the weight of a car.  Fortunately for us, I can buy these from work thus saving us a few pennies. 

 

Aco Groundguard grids

Strong enough to park cars on

Now we have the cunning plan, we just need a prolonged spell of dry weather, lots of tea and a bucketful of motivation to get stuck into it.

NOSEY NEIGHBOUR

‘My name is Michael Paine and I’m a nosey neighbour’.  Remember him?

 

I'm your nosey neighbour

Not one to be nosey or interfere in other people’s business (really?) I can’t help but notice that some of our elderly neighbours are always at it in the garden.  Now when I say ‘at it’ I’m not talking wrinkly rumpy-pumpy (gross!), I mean they just can’t leave the greenery alone for more than 5 minutes. 

The old dear across the way (I’ve nicknamed him Mr Mowtivator ‘cos he’s always got the mower out) fancies himself as Darth Lawn.  Not a day goes by when he’s not out brandishing his Flymo sabre across the verges or hedges battling with the rebel elements of root and leaf, the scourge of his garden galaxy that’s (not) too far, far, away.

 

The force is strong with this one

The newest arrivals to the street have ransacked the beach of stones to build a driveway thus thwarting the council of the newly introduced £39 parking permit fee.  Yes, it pains me to say we now have to pay to park outside our own home but not for long as we too have a cunning driveway plan up our sleeve.

 

Just another bucketful of pebbles should do it

Next door is now showing visible proof that she too likes to get her hands on a ‘big pole’ although there’s little evidence of much painting going on.  I’m sure the sound of crying babies will be a welcome addition (not!) to the yapping dog hullabaloo that erupts every time we so much as fart near the side fence.  If ever there was a Phantom Menace that pooch would be it.  Not wishing to be unneighbourly, there have been times when a steak laced with rat poison wouldn’t have gone amiss.  I’m definitely a cat or tortoise person. 

Then there’s the rear neighbour with her piercing sergeant major voice that could stop traffic at 5 paces and would not be out of place on an army parade ground.  I can hear her bossing hubby around like a puffed-up mother hen even with the patio doors closed, she is that loud.  No need to bother with a mobile phone love, just stand outside and all of West Sussex will hear your conversation. 

Michael Paine would have a field day round here.  Sometimes there’s so much toing, froing, mowing, howling and shouting that it’s a job to get any painting done because I’m glued to the window being a nosey neighbour.

You can see right across to Portsmouth

Bracklesham Bay

Sunset at West Wittering beach

CORRIDORS OF POWER

Throw your facemasks in the air like you just don’t care!  Woo hoo! 

That’s right, from Monday onwards you’ll be able to legally cough all over fellow shoppers without fear of being swooped upon by the Covid police.  Facemasks like pants will become a thing of the past.  You mean I still need to wear pants?  Bother! 

Unlike Matt Hancock who is leisurely trawling through the list of available jobs on Indeed.com, I have been going hell for a leather like a Taz with a paintbrush; bish, bash and boshing corridor walls and garden fences before summer is over. 

Both bedrooms are finally fully painted and the upstairs corridor is now in the queue for a spot of carpentry and banister treatment.  More on that to follow.

The Peacock suite ready for visitors

Parrot paradise - a cosy haven after a busy day

Just need a door and carpets and it'll be perfect

 

Top half done - ready for cladding

For the stair banister & handrail

Front garden fencing has been covered in Cuprinol and the back garden fences are slowly being re-coated as the Ronseal paint I’d applied earlier left a bit of a patchy finish even after a few coats.

 

Wilko special offer £10 a can

Instant garden - just add water & discount plants from B&Q

The silver copse colour of the Cuprinol paint is much darker than the Ronseal slate colour, an almost dark bluey-grey shade.  Although it’s not going to solve the poor half rotten condition of some of the fence panels, at least it’ll make them more weather proof and look better until it’s time to replace them. 

 

Fence as good as new

Plans are afoot to buy a corner shed for the back garden and we’ve already begun clearing out the borders to make way for a shaped concrete base on which it will sit.  Due to the shape of the structure, we’re calling on the professionals to build us a proper sized and level 4 inch base.  Lead time for sheds is around 24 weeks or more so even if we get the base built this year, it’s unlikely we’ll see the new shed until spring of 2022.

 

Preparing the site for a corner shed

And so it continues.  We may not be having a holiday for some time to come but at least we’ll have a nice house to live in.

DELTA SUMMER

So, Matt Hancock’s been a naughty boy and had to fall on his sword to do the right thing.  Caught on camera snogging a work colleague.  In the old days, that sort of behaviour was confined to the camera-free stationery cupboard, office parties or the office lift but in these days of Big Brother, electronic eyes are everywhere. 

Dish of the day

According to the Daily Mail furious Britons are raging at Matt’s blatant disregard for Covid rules.  Furious Britons?  What hypocrites!  I’m sorry but this is typical of the British media blowing up a situation out of all proportion to whip up a public frenzy over nothing.  Most of us have snogged work colleagues at some point in our lengthy careers – who cares?  Only those people who need to sell newspapers or the Dominic Cummings of this world who have an axe to grind.

Is there any real news?

Hands up if you’ve broken any Covid rules.  Yep, all you rule breakers out there, let’s form an orderly British queue.  Don’t be shy now, I know there are loads of you out there who have not done what the Government has recommended during the pandemic since day 1.  

I'm a rule breaker.  Yeah, me too!  And me!  

Let me see then - there are those who travelled between tier locations when they should have stayed at home, those who had more than 6 people outside their bubble come round for a few bevvies, those who were out when they should have been locked in or isolating, those who failed to sanitise, those who don’t wear face masks because they can’t be arsed to, those who went ahead and had family Christmas dinners regardless, those travelling to amber countries, those who travelled and couldn’t be bothered to quarantine, those not socially distancing, coughers who don’t cover their mouths and pavement spitters, etc, etc.  I reckon at least 75% or more of the UK population fell into these categories so if we lined up everyone who had blatantly disregarded Covid rules, the queue would stretch from Chichester to Skegness.  Matt H you are not alone! 

But rule breakers rejoice!  In spite of this grey, wintery weather, there is a cloud with a silver lining in sight as in only a fortnights time you’ll be able to throw caution to the wind because you’ll be responsible for yourselves.  The Government are washing their sanitised hands of you.  And before you demand ‘clarity’ on what this means – basically it’s down to YOU to make your own decisions on what it is safe to do. 

It’s shaping up to be a real corker of an Indian summer in more ways than one. Remember only the paranoid survive.  I’ve already filled my pantry with pasta and poo paper ready for the next lockdown.

Wake me up when this pandemic's over