Terrace and Pool #147

I know. I can hardly bear to continue to write about this longwinded project... But, this is how we've progressed this week. You shall hear it! Kevin built the bottom row of wall at the southerly end of the terrace, and I continued to dig mud from the pool hole and relocate mud to the terrace. Raking has become one of my main occupations; there's something quite soothing about raking, something a bit Japanese-y.

The levelling of the pool frame leg slabs has involved so much maths and double-checking, but, eventually, every single slab was perfectly level in its own right, and in relation to all of its brothers and sisters. A temporary centre point had to be installed to ensure total accuracy. Every slab has been carefully concreted in place. Digging and levelling this hole over the past few weeks has had quite an impact on my strength! It's good training for the rock-shifting task that lies in wait for me.

And then Sue came! Along with two trailer-loads of sand. Together, we became an unstoppable force, fine-levelling the earthy surface, sifting the sand to exclude any stones, and tamping down and levelling the sand's surface.

The garden sieves we used were the antique ones we unearthed in the ancient, haunted cottage #2. Throughout the operation, they gradually disintegrated. But they did the job!

All work was inspected by project-dog, Foxy.

Sue and I went 'around the clock' several times to ensure stoneless level perfection. That little plastic hub was temporary, so Sue had to make her careful way back to retrieve it after the first 'smooth off'. And then the pool went up! Sue and I followed the instructions exceedingly carefully, and were triumphant! As expected, smoothing out the bottom (pre-water) took a lot of paddy-paw inching. We began by installing the top rim. There were lots of bits to assemble, but our method proved to be effective; it wasn't as straightforward as you might think. The angle of every dangle was key. I worked on the inside of the pool while Sue installed the legs from the outside. This involved a lot of crazed lifting as we worked our way round. As you might assume, the placing of the legs was imperative. We made little tweaky adjustments as we worked. Our construction movements were like a dry-bathed ballet.

Why is there a footstool and a laundry basket in the pool? You may well ask. A Laurel and Hardy situation developed. After installing all of the legs, I realised that I couldn't get out of the pool. I had to send Sue for non-sharp climbing out items. These two items were the first that came to mind. And where were the men during all of this work?*

The pool came with a very nice ladder, but, inevitably, Kevin wanted to adapt it to suit our particular purposes. This next photo shows the ugly extent of his adaptations. Yes, it DID involve digging up my level and compacted earth on the terrace. The engineer-minded of you will work out his plan from this photo. It involved a lot of different gauges of pipe. And it will eventually include two tomato tins.

Kevin's weapons.

Yes, they ARE impressive!

While Kevin executed his ingenious plan, I dug up every trace of grass and weeds from the terrace surface. It's pleasing to work from a clean canvas. We've been thinking a lot about the surfacing, and have come to a peculiar decision. As we're using our own stones, salvaged from around the farm, and from the 'ruin', as we can't afford proper shop-bought slabs, it suits us to have a very malleable surface in which to plant our multi-sized stones. The plan is to throw all caution to the wind and miss out the hard-core layer. Yep. We will place the stones, then dry-fill the cracks with a lime and sand mix. The weed-proofness is so important, and a little voice inside my head keeps mocking me and promising me record-breaking weeds. We'll see.

After nearly two-days' of filling with water (metered- argh!), the pool is full! That big grey iceberg is the cover... Kevin put it like that; he has no grace.

Ta-dah!!

Oh. You noticed. No, we haven't built the second dormer window yet. It's on the back-burner for now. The terrace takes priority!

Fragrant interlude: After telling Sue that I'd never been a successful lavender-grower, this little dried out bush has decided to prove me wrong by flowering! I've always treated other people's lavender with disdain, heavy-handedly dragging off lumps of it as I pass gardens and spending hours afterwards enjoying the well-loved scent of washing detergents, hand creams and age. I now bark at Kevin for squidging my blooms!

We've been storing the potentially flat enough stones on the bank between the top field and the home field. They were totally obliterated by weeds and wild flowers (weeds). Today, they were granted their freedom!

One of the flat enough stones is actually a gravestone, but we've decided to be grown up about it, and will use it on the terrace due to its undeniable flatness. It took two humans and a small tractor to move it. And strategically positioned shovels. And ropes and chains with big hooks.

Depressing? Let's see what happens with our unorthodox terrace plan...

* The missing men. Remember the broken-down French car that was with the mechanic for six months then returned to us un-resolved and mouse-damaged? We ordered the bits and Steve and Kevin spent two days dismantling the engine, and another two days reassembling the engine. It works! The head gasket is replaced, along with all of its other 'must have' components. But it blows white smoke. Maybe it'll stop doing that soon...