Sunday, July 29, 2007

Enough of this...

Enough of cars, am fed up of cars, have made decision anyway, it will be black.
Don't know what it will be yet but it will be black.
But enough.

My weekend has consisted of woodworking, being that this is the first weekend without rain since Noah sent out that last dove, so off to B&Q I trotted and bought a heap load of more wood for the decking project that threatens world domination in a manner not seen since the Nazis.

£86 lighter - just how expensive is wood - t'would be cheaper to have paved my lawn in ten pound notes - £86 to add to the six or seven hundred that I've already spent on the decking project to end all decking projects and I think I've got enough now, maybe, or maybe I'll just need a few more planks later.

You see this is a decking project without design, I am making it up as I go along.

The people who owned this house before we did were nobody's gardeners and they had started to replace the whole of the back garden with shale and pebbles - had about 30 foot at the top of the garden so covered when we moved in - it looks nice, if boring, but nice and completely maintenance free, but barren of plants, just the shale and pebbles, its like having a beach at the top of your garden.

So I built the pond, above ground first of all, and then this happened, so half of it is now below ground and half above, clad in decking planks with a nice broad top to sit on and feed the fekking huge and greedy four year old Golden Orfe and the brand new tiny Titanium Koi - I'm sure I bought six of them but theres only ever been five since I put them in the pond, maybe one got out of the bag and is still in the car, it should start to smell soon, just in time for the car change.

And because I was told to build the pond at an angle to the garden rather than straight up and down the decking that followed is also angled inconjunction with the house and it looks all avent-garde and "way out man" as if I'd planned it that way, I didn't, it just happened.

And I kept adding bits to the decking so that it now stretches something like 30 foot wide by 20 foot long and there are raised planters scattered, literally at random, made from decking boards whenever I got bored of laying them flat and they now have azalea bushes growing in them.

And later I added low voltage recessed lighting and some solar recessed lighting and its starting to look like a tarts boudoir instead of a garden now and the foxes avoid us because the solar lights give off a blue-ish light that makes them look aneamic.

It was never written that I would be the woodworker of the family, I was the electrician of the family, Ned was the wood worker, got his City and Guilds, did his apprenticeship and everything, when he builds something of wood it looks like he knew what he was doing right from the start, as indeed he does, where as my decking project looks like I made it up as I went along, as indeed I did.

The problem with Neds woodworkig is that he is so bloody slow, every joint has to be hand carved and match perfectly, every cut is done with precision and planned out aforehand in a tiresome ritual of measurement, step back and think, then measure some more, I just cut the bloody stuff 'till its just about there and then nail it to some other wood.

You can walk on my decking though.
Its perfectly safe.

As long as you're quick and don't loiter for too long, its not for extended use.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm so behind on your blog but I get your updates in Google Reader. I'm behind because I keep 'saving it' for when I have time to read it properly. 'Tis a compliment. But then you keep posting more! Stop it, stop it, man!

Gary said...

Its an addiction - I can't stop !!!

All of this stuff will find its way onto the biog web site sooner or later, with more detail, this place is like a notebook :)