the patio

Ok I've been working to the patio for two weeks, and though it's not finished, I thought I should show you the work in progress.

We started by sinking a pond as I thought it was urgently needed to find a home for some tadpoles, which will hopefully turn into frogs. I know it should really be in the back garden from a permaculture point of view, so the frogs can eat the slugs around the veg, etc, but seeing as I only have potatoes and blackcurrants at the moment, and there are already frogs there, that it wasn't as important as the fengshui. And, anyway, the old sandpit was there, having a failed freecycle collection, and there it wanted to stay. It was just sitting there, filling with water. It just was crying out to be a pond. The boys loved dipping sticks in it, etc.


Anyway, you've probably seen this one before. It was increasingly hot throughout this project by the way, so digging a hole in a day was quite a feat.


Once I had the sand pit in the hole I stuck a few random plants in round the edges before I filled in the gaps.

Then we prettified it with some painted pebbles the boys found round the back of the house. I think that lavender's dead now, but I bought some new ones today from LIDL for £2.49- woops! I spent something.

And then I lifted all the flagstones and levelled the earth. I had to put these big stones in round the pond as it is lower than the level of the bit next to the house.

here is the level part next to the house. My rake broke, but I managed to use up all the soil that I had dug out to make the hole, fortunately, as the wheelbarrow won't go round the tiny path round to the back garden.

And here's what it has looked like for the last few days. It is level and covered in old carpet that I found in the back garden. It is waiting for some sand, that I might go and get tomorrow, if owner of landrover, that I have inadvertantly become a named driver of, is willing. Otherwise I will have to get Meg's boyfriend's dad, who conveniently works at local builder's merchants, to deliver me some, (free delivery, nudge nudge, say no more).
I went with a list of things to the builder place, hoping to buy enough for free delivery, although it's only a fiver. But the washing line posts were far to industrially large for my refined pretensions, although probably needed in this household. I did dubiously buy a hosepipe connector for the outside tap, having measured it to be an inch and the connector saying it did 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch taps, and it fitted. The man said it was worth a try though as the measurements never make any sense. So that has enhanced the quality of out lives no end, as not only can we now use a hosepipe (now it's raining) and water the grass seeds, potatoes, and half-dead willow, the water doesn't spray all over the place from the outside tap, which just had half a spout on it, with a screw thread. Hmmm... i did achieve something small but worthwhile today.