Oxford isn't as bad as Elaine thought

A lovely weekend with Elaine and Mark, the first overnight visitors to our new house.

This morning we parked at Wolvercote near Oxford, and set off on a bracing Sunday morning walk. We walked along the water meadows and saw the wildish horses relaxing around the footpath ahead of us.

I am always very wary around animals, particularly large ones, but horses don't have sharp teeth and look pretty gentle, although I did stay at the back of our group just to be on the safe side.

They weren't interested in us so we made it safely out of the meadows.

We walked along a beautiful canal and into Oxford. Elaine has already seen Oxford on a hen weekend about 15 years ago and didn't manage to find any nice bits that time, so we set off to try to find some for her. 

Bingo.....

She took lots more photos of incredible buildings, but these are the only ones that she sent me. And why do we all have such huge feet in front of Trinity College?

The good news is that she has changed her opinion and now Oxford is better than she expected.

After a happy hour or so wandering around the dreaming spires we joined the river Thames on its Path.

We saw some nice nature and then back to the car with over 13 kilometres showing on Strava.

Gravel delivery

So, after Darren had cleared all of the clay from behind the greenhouse I spent a morning building a little foundation wall, and shuttering it in place with bricks and plastic liner. The weather forecast was for light rain showers, but before I had finished, it suddenly started hailing with torrential rain thrown in. Twice. 

Once it had stopped we went to investigate and lots of the foundations had been washed away under the fence and into the plot next door. The moral of this story is never to trust the weather forecast. 

Today was a good day though as we had a delivery of two tonnes of gravel. 

It was a busy day and some nice little jobs got finished. Darren had levelled all of the slabs to the pergola and we filled in all of the gaps with gravel. 

I saw a lovely bog garden on the TV and was quite inspired by it, so we have made our own in the boggiest part of the garden instead of ignoring the problem and watching ordinary plants struggle in the mud. 

It doesn't look much yet but give it time. Also don't walk on it if you don't want to lose a boot in it. 

Darren spent the morning rebuilding my foundation wall and substantially fortifying it, and it didn't rain until a few hours after he finished, so it is still looking good. 

I wore myself out digging soil out of the fish shape, then filling the hole with clay, then a layer of gravel, then finally putting the soil back on top. Phew. 

 Not ready for the grass yet, but not far off. 

Beyond the call of duty

 Top marks today to Darren who threw himself enthusiastically into the task of improving the drainage behind the greenhouse and the back of the garden. It is a shame that there has been so much rain recently, because it turned it into a nightmare job.

He kept smiling all day though, even when his boot got stuck in the mud and he had to dig it out in just his sock!

Below is the photo of the garden this morning, and since then he has dug out tonnes of clay and carried it in to the middle of the fish.

The hole is quite deep and we are going to fill it with gravel and a drain pipe, but I can't take an 'after' photo because it started to rain really heavily and it is now totally full of water.

I think that tomorrow he might have to buy some wellies, but first I am going to try to bail out the water with a bucket.

He has also moved the water butt, and done a bit of fancy pipe work so that the back and half of the front of the greenhouse drain in to it.

Fish in water

 The weather was supposed to be okay yesterday, so I had high hopes of finishing the fish. It started to rain a bit, but I decided that it was only a shower so mixed up a good sized bucket of mortar.

The weather had different ideas though and it started to pour down. Getting soaked I rushed to put in some bricks and then raced quickly down the path. Foot in mid air, I rememberd that Darren had put in an extra step on the path and there was wet concrete under the slab.

I tried really hard to avoid stamping down on it, but it was too late and I hit it near to the edge. Even worse, Darren was watching from the kitchen so I couldn't even deny it.

Today I relaid it and there is now a bucket on the top so that I don't do it again.

Anyway yesterday, it then rained constantly for about six hours and now our fish is almost surrounded by water.

Slight exaggeration, but his head is definitely very wet.

Fortunately today it was dry from about 11am onwards, so I have finished the brickwork on the fish and the path up to the pergola.

Bank Holiday project

We have been looking at the lawn in the garden and it is not really very good. The section near to the greenhouse gets very waterlogged and the grass is very poor. Also, it is not very level and quite a narrow straight boring border along the fence.

We have decided to create a soakaway next to the greenhouse and make the lawn smaller. We started to think about the overall shape with more curvy edges. Darren then suggested that we make a fish shaped lawn! 

We started yesterday by digging out the grass around the edges and saving the turf to rot down for use as soil in the new flowerbeds. 

This morning Darren dug out and levelled the ground while I emptied the plants from the soakaway area, and either put them into temporary pots or replanted them around the garden.

I am very pleased that a daisy was growing in the lawn so I dug a deep spadeful of grass and soil up with it and moved it in to the grass near the greenhouse, I hope that it survives its change of address.

Bad weather this afternoon so we went shopping for sand and cement for the mini foundations. Unfortunately there appears to be a national shortage of cement so we only found the sand. Hopefully the local builders merchants will have a couple of bags, and I will be on the phone to them first thing tomorrow morning. 

Progress on the site

There is loads of work going on all around us, and every day something new happens.

There are still a lot of gaps, but they are filling up rapidly.

This is quite a recent aerial shot, and the red squares are all new plots in progress.

Just along and behind us is a plot that is having a huge basement. We have watched the hole grow daily and when they were putting the metal pilings in to the ground our whole house shook, and all of the glasses in our cupboards clinked and clattered together.

The builders have just started the filling in process and have put in a concrete base that is drying over the weekend.

The plot next door to the giant basement has just had it's scaffolding put up and the frame is due to arrive in two days time. The plot behind the house with the turquoise roof is just being dug out, and just out of sight on this photo is another brand new house. 

All quiet today though on Bank Holiday Sunday.