DIY SOS

It's good to know a local handy man and these gloves belong to one such person. James offered to take down the wall and make good, for a very reasonable price and after seeing just what was involved today, I'm so glad that I didn't try to do it myself. 

I took plenty of photos for a pictorial record (sadly James declined to be in any of them) but I chose this one for several reasons. The first is to show the enormous hole, the second is because during the lull in work, our resident blackbird visited the site and found quite a bounty to feed to his young brood. Thirdly, I wanted to show the footings of the wall. You may not be able to tell but these huge stones are the lintels from the old vicarage that used to stand on the site of our house. It took hours to get them out and now we have a mountain of stone to dispose of. Apparently there is over two tonnes and it's worth quite a bit of money. 

Mr E found an old black and white photo of the vicarage to show James, who was very interested in figuring out the position of the old house and the layout of the orchards and gardens. 

This evening the sunlight flooded into an otherwise shaded area of the garden and for the first time, my husband said, 'You're right! It's made a huge difference and we should have done it years ago. 

Phew! :))