Week 20: Phase 4. 2nd half of week

 First session...

Wasn't sure about what to do about the pebbles initially after speaking to the bloke at the cricket club, but decided for this section which constitutes a 3rd of the space I'd carry on sieving the clay and dirt out of the pebbles. Then I thought - what would happen if I walked over the pebbles and twisted the pebbles underfoot - surely that would help rub all the dirt off the stones? So I gave it a go and lo and behold it worked a million times better than sieving. Combined with the fact that it's dry and warm, the dirt rubbed off easy leaving on a few shakes of the sieve before getting the stones on the sub base!

Thinking about the trench I dug last night on the Gabion side, I decided rather than pay money for gabions and the like I'd just fill it with stones, so that's what I've done - mainly because of the discussion with the bloke (Paul) at the cricket club and his question about whether it had previously flooded down there? 

This is pretty much how I've ended up after the first session before dinner. The drainage gully up against the gabions filled with stones and more stones in the prepped area, all of the stones that had been previously dug out de-dirted and put back. The dirt that came off them saved for the grass area at the top.

Below the progress up to tea time. The patio area I'm looking at in terms of being three sections, so this is the 2nd section being worked on now. All the concrete paving slabs taken up and placed in the first section out of the way. The first section will now be used as a storage area. As well as moving the slabs I've moved stuff into the garage and had a tidy up generally.

Above the view looking towards 'Tony's'. Below as it wont be too long now before I need to get working on the 3rd and final part of the patio (Far end in this image) I need to start throwing stuff away. Or, using it e.g. the 1 tonne bag of topsoil, so I've made a start (Below) of transferring the topsoil up to the top part of the garden which will eventually be grassed...

At the moment the topsoil is being put around all the tat that's up the top part of the garden. I realistically need to have a tidy up and a move around in order that I can get more of the topsoil up there. I also need to think about some of the plants and where they're going. 

The last session (After tea) Made a start on digging the clay out. What you see here equates to 6 barrows of clay. Once this first layer has been dug out another slightly lower layer needs to be dug out as well! I reckon if I get help from Ben and or Joe all of the digging might be done within the next 10 days, meaning we could be laying the patio by July 25th - so possibly the patio might be done by August?