Cement, fillers and other beauty aids

The slow tide of the terrace continues to treacle onwards. You think YOU'RE sick of it? I simply HAVE to get up and get on with it every day, and one day, the world will rejoice! This corner is quite a deep one, and not many of my current rocks are that deep, so I've had to transport lots of hard core chunks from behind the pottery*. Digging into a massive bag of hardcore with a trowel is surprisingly tiring and frustrating, a fierce plunge often being met with a solid wall of resistance. The next step is placing the rocks on the layer of hard core. The process of building a fairly level terrace is tiresome, yet absolutely necessary. I use an old French spirit level that Alain lent me, and a strip of wall metal, but both items have let me down in the past. A wet and icy winter caused puddles on slightly lower parts of the terrace, and when we returned in the Spring, there was ice damage to my lime mix.

Once the rocks are satisfactorily positioned and levelled, I make a wheelbarrow-load of cement mix (5 parts sand, 2 parts cement) and lift up small sections of rocks to put down the cement. Sometimes, the sections I lift don't quite fit back together neatly, so creative solutions must be sought, i.e. tactical rock-swapping. I then need to leave the cemented section to harden overnight before carrying out the most enjoyable part- inserting the lime mix (3 parts sand, 1 part lime, 1 part cement, 1 squirt PVA).

Here, you can see where I've had to dig out the original cracked up lime mix and replace it with new. There's a colour-match issue, as I've started to use more cement in the mix to make it stronger. Some smaller mended patches have already cracked up again, so I'm having to chisel out the surrounding area and try again.

Here is my friend and co-worker, the cement mixer. Kevin says I don't look after him well, and he then sets to banging him with a hammer! After each load, I normally put in some water and leave him to spin for a while, but, apparently, he requires more care than that.

And then the next patch of rocks is laid down:

Cement is introduced:

Today, I was supposed to be doing the lime mix, but it's raining again!

Even though I wear thick gloves for my terrace work, my nails do suffer:

For the first time in years, I adorned my calloused worker's hands with some nail polish in an attempt to look lovely for a friend's birthday tea party. I applied FIVE layers of Angelblush, and this is how it looked the very next day! Building a terrace does very little to improve my looks. I'm invariably plastered in cement, sweaty and smelly, my hair dragged up in a tangled bundle on top of my head, or contained beneath a cap if it's very sunny. I do have strong arms, though, and I'm sure my women's arm-wrestling world-ranking position is pretty near the top. 

Here's a little peek at the perfection of the party, with credit due to my very talented friend, Emma:

Back on the terrace (sorry to drag you there again!), Kevin has managed a small spread of render. The first attempt wasn't successful, most of it falling off onto a finished part of the terrace. I, of course, was horrified! This time, he practised on a section I haven't yet reached. I've told him that he'll need to put down a board or something similar as he continues, as the last thing I want is a render-splodged terrace.

Look at the amount of spillage!

Okay, back to something cuter. A pair of pied wagtails has made a nest under the soffit at the back of cottage #1. They're now feeding five babies. Both Mum and Dad make repeated trips to the grass and trees to collect bugs. The noise each time they return, full-beaked, to the nest, is extremely high-pitched and frantic, but super-cute! Kevin popped his GoPro just up from where they're nesting and has some wonderful footage of them all. 

Continuing the topic of birds, I may have mentioned before how we hear the incredibly beautiful call of a golden oriole in our trees every summer, but have never actually seen one. Well, now I've seen one! I was weeding the top kitchen garden, when I looked up at its tropical call, and suddenly, there it was! Chasing a redstart between trees! Of course, I didn't have my camera with me up in the mud, but this is what it looked like:

I'll leave you with two very different skies from yesterday:

* Calling it The Pottery makes it easier to believe that one day it will be. For now, it's still a bread oven full of gardening equipment and the coffin. I'm still looking for a secondhand electric potter's wheel and a small electric kiln; please let me know if you have either of these items lurking, unloved and forgotten.