Outdoors, Indoors and a 70th Birthday
The last few months have been busy with gardening and some heavy landscape projects. The main one being a set of steps from the patio area down to the lower path by the shrubbery. I constructed the basic “U” step profiles using 6″ by 2″ treated timber. I got DG Heath to cut long planks into 32″ pieces to save me time and ensure all pieces were consistent and square. I made a jig to hold the pieces during assembly and screwed the pieces using 150mm decking screws. With a stack of preforms, I started at the bottom (with spirit level) and worked up the bank fixing the preforms together using 24″ 10mm rebar rods hammered down through the steps into the bank. The overall curved stairs looked good and safe. Various lumps of brickwork, stones and then hardcore were used to backfill the steps, followed by a layer of weed suppressant sheet and finally topped off with some smooth pebbles. After settling, I recon I will need another half ton of pebbles to bring the levels up to the step edge. Having looked around the web for handrail ideas, I settled on a basic post and rope as the curved nature of the steps was too awkward, or expensive, to create an aesthetically pleasing handrail. Having chopped all the posts to the same length, I routed a groove towards the top and drilled a hole for the rope – then repeat 14 times! The posts were fixed to the steps with coach bolts and screws and after threading the rope, I (and June) are pleased with the overall finish and safety.
Following visit or three to a garden centre in Carmarthen, we ended up with quite a collection of shrubs. This is in addition to the ones I propagated from the autumnal cutting of hydrangeas etc. Unfortunately, the petrol auger stopped working halfway through the digging process. It appeared the petrol pipe had hardened over the last 6 months, leaving the fuel filter high and dry. During the process of changing the pipe and cleaning the carburettor, the pump diaphragm developed an air leak and refused to prime. A new £12 carb to fix the problem and hole boring happily continued.
The Dining room was the the last room in the bungalow that needed a makeover, mainly due to an uneven floor that always caught chair legs. The (multiple owner) furniture went to charity, which exposed the hole in the floor where the original occupants tiled around the home made dresser (cobbled together kitchen units). This took two bags of levelling compound, while the exposed wall required three coats of paint to cover over the combination of bare plaster and a large patch of gloss paint! The new planked floor was laid by a local flooring company on a levelling scree over two days and looks really good. The replacement furniture has a similar “industrial” look to that in my bedroom. This was finished on Tuesday 11th. Wednesday the 12th was spent moving the furniture into position, leaving two days before June’s 70th birthday party.
We had planned an outside gathering of about 20 family and friends in the barmy warmth of mid June, however it was cold and rained, so everything had to be setup inside. My old faithful Smeg 4-deck oven was lugged in from the garage and dusted down. I hand made some 14 pizza bases, each about 2ft x 1ft, a litre of special tomato sauce and numerous tubs of toppings. The final pizza’s were caramelised onion and blue cheese; meat feast – salami, chorizo, ham and pepperoni; vegetable combo – asparagus, courgettes, leaks, mushrooms, pine nuts and baby sweet corn; seafood – prawns, tuna, anchovies and capers; tex mex – minced beef, chillies, chipotle, mexicana cheese and red kidney beans; fig and proscutio; hawaiian; meatball – Carmarthenshire balls infused in a tomato sauce with a hint of paprika. I had never made this quantity of pizzas before, and even though I constructed and cooked it all in two batches, I soon ran out of space to put trays and ingredients down. Some of our friends had travelled from Wiltshire and they took a food parcel back. Emma and Martin decided they wanted vegetarian pizzas for supper, so it was just as well there was still plenty of toppings!!! The main thing was that June had a wonderful time and the house was full of friends, bunches of flowers, rose plants and chocolates. Now what to do with all the leftovers – ah yes – the answer is always PIZZA.
