couple of little jobs in the courtyard today

spent an hour or so in the garden today - pulled a few weeds, put up another mosaic and trimmed the hedge plants. Some photos follow:







PS - Fi you can tell Ian that the plant he crushed has damn near recovered. We also have a serious scale infestation (white scale) which needs Adrian's skills as the family scale dr.

While it is still winter, the plants have established themselves well and as the warmer days start i am sure they will shoot up.

The crack - we still have the crack and a less obvious one at the back of the paver area. I have been guaranteed this crack will be fixed and it needs to be because it is right in the area where you walk around the corner of the house. It couldnt be in a more obvious spot:

last post - maybe

this site is now basically going to remain dormant as the jobs are done, but there should be one last post when the big crack in our "paving" is completed and it better be as promised or I might just have to make a whole heap more posts.

so if you are visiting because you are interested in past work - welcome - but if you are expecting more - sorry to disappoint.

Jeff

my other backyard blitz - officially finished

Well today was officially the last day of MOBYB. in case you have forgotten what it looked like when i started there are 3 old photos plus a couple of final photos.

Today i moved the last of the stuff which was hanging around the back, cleaned out the gutter on the patio roof, cleaned the bricks with a high pressure hose and did a couple of other small jobs. In addition, i hung some hooks in the garage to enable mum/dad to hang up some tools.

the before







And the after





Overall, they seem very happy. all in all, the job looks ok. the space is now much brighter and it certainly will take far less effort to keep looking ok.

Its Done

I finished my other backyard blitz today (except for a couple of minor jobs). Mum and Dad seem really pleased with it so that's good. the finished product:







All that remains to do is for my sister to get some of her stuff removed and then the paving will need to be pressure sprayed. Once a few pots are placed around and some mosaics hung on the wall it will look even better

job nearly done

there is light at the end of the tunnel - and it is not a train coming the other way. I put in a good days work today and managed "very nearly" to get the job finished. But when i realised i wasnt going to to able to, and pick up all the rubbish/tools etc before dark, I called it a day.

I will go back tomorrow for a few hours and then i might need to go back one day next week to do all of the "ancillary" jobs (hang some mosaics, move some pot (not that kind) plants.

here are some photos to prove its real and not blog fiction:

as it was when i finished yesterday:





finish today



jobs for tomorrow - a small number of bricks to cut and then the mess and tools to clean up.

another average day on the job

got up a bit late this morning so i didnt arrive at mum and dad's until just after 9. I was thinking i had till about 1.30 to work as I had to pick G up from an appointment at around 2.30 or 3pm, but in the end she was finished early so i had to leave at 11.30.

as a result i did not get much done. managed to cut some bricks for the back section of the paving but it was a slow old process as there were lots of cuts required.

It now looks like this is going to take another 3-4 days at this rate so i will be back there tomorrow bright and early.

the gods conspired against me today i think

went to mum and dad's this morning after breakfast (got there about 9). it took me pretty much all morning to clean up the additional area which needs to be paved because it was full of roots. then i had to fix the reticulation. I tried to patch it up, but this proved to be a complete waste of time in the end so I had to get in the car and drive to the hardware store (about 20mins away) and buy some new retic pipe, drive back and fix it. In the end it was ok.

Because of the gap in time since i laid the bricks originally, the issues with the retic and the changes which are required i had to pull up 3-4 metres of bricks I had already laid to make sure i can get it all level and solid. then when i went to compact the area i had cleaned up i found that the compacting tool we had made was missing. Emilio had taken it home so that job has to wait until tomorrow (as i picked it up again on the way home).

Then i started to cut some of the bricks which need to be cut to finish the job and the power went off in the whole area and it stayed off for over an hour. In the end i gave up, did a couple of other small jobs for mum, had a shower and left.

On the way home I got a coffee, read the paper and here i am ready to do it all over again tomorrow.

Hopefully I will be more efficient and effective.