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Day One

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Wednesday afternoon 25th. April 2001 - Work begins. Fencing Panels and posts are brought in, and work commences on removing the old chain link fence, with their concrete foundations. This picture shows the first panel in a temporary position, as rain stopped play. They did however get the first of the slabs in position, retaining the soil in Sue's raised bed. This soil retention method was to prove a bit of a problem, due to ground conditions.

	Day Two
Martyn and crew overcame considerable difficulties sinking the paving on edge, because of undeground concrete debris, complicated by my requirement of a gravel filled soak-away gulley between the panels, however the problems were overcome, and the fence was erected. He had to step the fence up, to match the upper level of paving, and this means the wall line will have to be brought further away from the summer house, than originally planned. Martyn assured me it will be 'alright on the night'. The Bradstone Weathered Cotswold paving arrived. This differed to our original choice, but Martyn chose them to match the wall blocks, to continue the theme, and I'm happy with that.
	Martyn's eye is on the job

Day Three

I have never seen anyone work as hard as Martyn, Marvin and Craig did today. Because of the restricted access, they were unable to use any mechanical equipment, and had to dig out, and wheelbarrow the earth to a waiting lorry, which they filled up to the side boards, in about an hour. The vision of workmen stood leaning on their shovels, took a beating today. They still managed to finish the fencing, and paved gully, and started barrowing in and laying the ballast. What a great team effort!

Day Three

The garden is looking better already, and not a slab has been laid. Martyn continues to modify and improve on my original layout, as he overcomes minor difficulties, and suggests alternatives. He is now going to continue the terraced wall, along the side of the summer house, removing the concrete edging I laid around the base. This will have the effect of tying everything in, instead of having a boundry between the summer house and the paved areas.

Day Four

All the groundwork has been completed today, the rest of the earth was excavated, and collected by the Garden Nursery for recycling. The ballast and sand was barrowed in. The ballast was laid, levelled, and compacted with the wacker plate, then blinded with sand. Things are now at the stage where various things are happening at once. Martyn turned his attention to the paving around the pond, and the wall assembly. This was a bit of a problem, as I had laid the concrete wall base to suit a particular walling block, then decided to use the Bradstone ones instead; which are taller.

Day Four

This had the effect of raising the wall height above that of the pond, meaning that the coving would not lay direct upon the pond edge, and would need something fairly thick, to bridge thegap. Martyn and me discussed various methods of overcoming this problem, and we agreed finally, to lay only one layer of blocks, but upon, rather than below the paving, then lay the coving on a bed of mortar on the blocks, and a layer of Gripfill on the fibreglass edge of the pond. The layer of wall blocks no longer required, will be utilized along the edge of the summer house, the extra job Martyn agreed to do, and will save me having to purchase these.

Day Four

I am really pleased with Martyn's choice of paving. It has a nice weathered look, and the variations in texture and colour, make it look less bland than our original choice of 'Old London' would have been. This is the sort of benefit you get from employing a Garden Design Company, rather than a builder. Martyn has consulted with me all along the line, and made suggestions for alternatives, if conditions have effected the original design, not blindly pressing on with the original brief, as I suspect a builder would.This picture shows the polystyrene insulation boarding lining the pond, and the outlet for the pond overflow, which is piped to an underground soakaway.