A Mans Work is never done

 

I mentioned previously that we built an extension onto our house last year.  The work only finished around the start of November, so this summer there has been some remedial work to be done outside.

 

Before I get into the project at hand, a little background info might make me reasoning clearer.  Our house was built in the early 1960’s, and when we first moved in everything needed to be done.  There was no central heating, the kitchen was the original early 60’s one, no insulation, etc. etc.  At the edge of the front driveway, someone had built (very badly) a raised flower bed with two rows of old granite cobble stones.  It was just the right height so that the car door banged on it every time we parked in the narrow drive, so it had to go.  Meanwhile in the back garden was a large mound that was covered with weeds.  I presumed it was just soil or perhaps builder’s rubble.  

 

When I eventually got time to deal with it, the first thrust of the shovel made a distinct clang when it hit something very hard.  It was another cobble stone, in fact the whole mound, and a few feet of soil below the mound proved to be pretty solidly made from the things.  The house must have been built around the time when councils were getting rid of all their old Victorian cobbles.  These aren’t a bad thing to find, and we had enough of them to build walls at the front and back of the house, along with single rows around flower beds and as a border to steps at the bottom of the garden.  I became reasonably proficient at building with them just as my supply of the damned things eventually ran out.

 

One of the existing walls.  I'm told that the dark stones are basalt. The lighter ones are granite

So, part of last years extension was a downstairs shower and utility room at the side of the house.  This meant building over part of the existing path at the side, so to reinstate access again, we then had to widen it by building a new section over a previously planted area.  Having ripped out the plants that had been in this admittedly pretty wild area, we decided to build a raised bed, and to do this, while keeping it’s look something similar to the rest of the garden, I first had to find a supply of reclaimed cobbles.  These are much more scarce than they used to be so were not easy to find, but after calling a number of reclamation yards, I found a yard outside the tiny hamlet of Listooder, about 30 miles from home, (9 houses and 31 people according to the 2011 census).  They are not cheap these days either.  Cobble stones are exceptionally heavy, so with two layers of them packed carefully into my small trailer, and more in the car’s boot and even in the passenger seat footwell, it was a very slow drive home.  Given the state of some of the roads in this part of the world, I’m surprised that I didn’t do some damage to the poor old car’s suspension.  Perhaps this is yet another reason for not owning expensive cars?  It is so much easier not to worry about a workhorse car than it would be for some P&J pose mobile that you’ve just mortgaged you soul to own.

 

Reclaimed cobbles, before cleaning

They told me that the thousands they had in stock came from the docks area in Belfast, where they had been found during construction work.  The cobbles had been used as landfill.  They certainly looked like it and were filthy with an ingrained, clinging dirt that took an age to clean off.  Even now, the granite still looks nowhere near as good as our existing stones.  Hopefully time and out good Northern Irish weather will complete the cleaning process that I have begun!

 

The sheer volume of stones, sand and cement that can disappear into even the most modest of foundations and building mortar never ceases to amaze me.  I under-estimated this twice, so I’m sure the guys at my local builder’s yard had a good laugh at my repeated visits for small quantities of the same few things.  Getting the levels right on the sloping ground probably took me the longest time.  Once the levels were set things progressed fairly well.  As you can see in the photo, I have yet to reinstate the fence at the back of the bed, and also to the right of the picture.  You will see too that I used concrete blocks where they will not be seen.  The ridiculous thing in this project is the one thing I didn’t even consider when planning it.  It will cost more for the soil, compost and manure to fill the bed than it did to build the damned thing!  More heavy shifting and mixing of this last filling will be required too.  Still, its more satisfying doing a project like this than it would be just going to a gym.

The main structure is complete, but there is plenty more still to do.  The bed is approximately 2.3m square.