Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

It really wasn't! and you wouldn't want to do any cooking with it once I'd finished!!

 

18th~20th September 2023

On the 18th, we had another five bulk bags delivered, this time containing building sand. I needed space in the back garden for the sand, so I began moving paving slabs closer to the area where the path was to be.

I watched a Youtube video about a guy who laid a path with recycled paving. He washed them afterwards, only to find out that some were grey while others were green. Thankfully for him, by chance, they were in an alternating pattern! Mine were all grey, but there were some much lighter ones. Those were separated to use together. I decided it would be best to jetwash mine before laying them!



Another move to make more space for sand was to finish another bag of river gravel on the railway ballast edging. I laid a strip of weed membrane on the edge of the earth embankment, to create an area free from plants between the proper ballast area and the embankment. This was then filled with river gravel. This strip would be easier to clean of dead plant matter, than digging around in the main ballast.

 

25th September 2023

On the 25th, I began working on the foundations for the path, using the "Earth-crete" method. Using my power drill, my new tool worked really well to break up the soil. Due to the amount of stones and the remains of a brick wall under the soil, the nails slowly bent and eventually snapped off. However, the remaining part of the tool I made still worked very well on its own, to break up the soil. After loosening up the clay soil, I shovelled several scoops of building sand into the soil and mixed that in with the drill. This helped to break up the clay further. After that, I mixed in the cement until the earth was a uniform colour.



The next step was hard work. I bought a ten pound tamper to pound down the earth to compact it and flatten it. The earth was sticking to the end of the tamper to some degree, so I ended up with a plastic rubble sack on the earth and tamping it down through the bag.



I got an area large enough for four paving stones prepared. I needed to lay these four slabs before I can go any further, in order to work out the height of the earth preparation for the rest of the path towards the trailer hard stand.

I ended the day by painting my new railway sign in black Hammerite.

 

26th September ~ 2nd October 2023

With the railway crossing sign paint baked hard on the evening of the 26th, it was screwed to the gatepost on the 27th ( I feel safer in the garden now that the sign is up!).



I spent the rest of the day moving building sand from the drive to the back garden. On the 28th, the first three full paving slabs had their edges cleaned up of old mortar. The first three were laid on a bed of mortar, which lies on top of my earth-crete, which by this time was very hard.

The last slab couldn't be full size, due to a trunk from the hawthorn hedge, which was a bit too close. A large amount of the hedge sprouts out from this trunk, otherwise I would have just cut it out. I made use of one of the broken slabs, cut to a two foot square slab and then two other smaller pieces cut to fit around the trunk, leaving a bit of growing room. That was as far as I could go without more ground preparation.

 

On the 29th, I spent the day with the power drill, breaking up the clay soil, to around 4 inches deep. Building sand was mixed in next, to further break up the clay and to dry it out. That was followed by mixing cement into it and tamping it down. The ten pound tamper took about ten strikes to pack down one square foot. One hundred pounds lifted for every square foot flattened. My arms and shoulders still haven't forgiven me. Once an area large enough for another four paving slabs was flattened, it was lightly watered a few times over the next few hours, to cure the earth-crete.



The 1940s show at the Royal Navy Museum in Hartlepool gave me a couple of days off hard work, but I was back out on the 2nd of October. The next four slabs had their edges cleaned up and were lifted up against the fence until the mortar was mixed. More sand was barrowed from the front garden and then the mortar mixing began.

These four slabs bring the path almost up to the trailer hardstanding. I've already removed the wooden shuttering that supported the hardstanding concrete, but need to bury the observatory armoured power supply cable along the edge, before preparing any more paving foundations. So eight slabs laid, only another twenty eight to go. The rest of the day was spent giving the laurel hedges another haircut.

 

6th~8th October 2023

On the 6th, I laid another five paving slabs, from the back of the planters to most of the way along the back of the trailer hardstanding. Later in the day, I moved the remaining eighteen paving slabs from next to the workshop to the trailer hardstanding. Once there, they were all jet-washed. The next morning, more earth-crete foundations were prepared, ending at the garage.



The diamond cutting wheels I bought, made easy work of cutting the 70Kg concrete slabs. One needed cutting narrower to clear the plastic tube containing the observatory power cable. I marked the cut line along a piece of wood using the small grinder, before cutting it with the 9 inch wheel.



On the 8th, I finished laying the last two slabs that bring the path up to the garage. That made 36 feet of paving laid up to that point.

 

9th~11th October 2023

On the 9th, I spent several hours cutting back the hawthorn hedge and the ivy growing at its base, where I wanted my path. The following day, I began breaking up the clay soil. My drill attachment kept buzzing on some bricks, buried a couple of inches below the surface, so out came the trowel and I started digging them out. Then a few more, and more, all the way along the hedge. This digging bricks out continued into the 11th. I ended up with quite a large pile. They would be useful however, for a wall repair along side the driveway.



My back was aching, so I turned my attention to a job I could do standing up, the wonky wall. Since we moved house, one section of the driveway wall has had a significant bow and lean to it. This was caused by a branch and the roots of an old tree in my neighbour's garden. I'd warned my daughter to keep away from it, as it didn't look particularly stable. Using the 9 inch diamond cutting wheel to cut the mortar, I was able to separate the large capping stones, after which, the bricks were literally falling out. My neighbour came out after hearing the noise and then gave me a hand to dismantle the wall - by hand.

I've taken a few walls down over the years, normally requiring a lot of hammering a bolster chisel to break out the bricks from the mortar. This wall, being about 160 years old, I believe was built with lime mortar. It was very white and powdery, allowing the bricks to be pulled out by hand, often with no effort. How the wall stayed standing for so long is a mystery. By the end of the day, the wall was down, including part of a bodged concrete and brick pillar at the right end, that at one time must have had a wooden gatepost attached to it.

 

12th~16th October 2023

I got sand mixed into the soil from the end of the observatory to the join between the lawn and railway. This helped to dry out the clay and allowed work to continue. Next, two paving slabs worth of foundations had cement mixed in and packed down before light rain stopped work.

The following morning, the remains of the concrete pillar were brought down from the wall, by slicing it into small sections which could then be chiselled out. My neighbour had also dug out a lot of the soil around the tree and had cut all of the upper branches off. I tried to do some more foundations, but the soil was too wet from the rain.

I had a rest day on Saturday the 14th and got back to work on the 15th. The day was spent on the path foundations all the way to the lawn/railway join. Using the tamper was exhausting, but I got about another 16 feet of the foundations prepared.

The 16th was mostly about laying paving. After sorting the MOT on one of the cars, all the tools came out and I carried seven paving slabs down to the hedge. Much of the rest of the day was spent mixing mortar and laying the slabs.



While I had been working on my paving, my neighbour had been digging out more of the tree roots, preparing to fell it. It was actually two trunks intertwined, one of which was already dead. It was already loose in the ground, so I suggested trying a rope around it and just pulling it down.

After a few good tugs on the rope, the tree started moving and once we got it rocking, it wasn't going to stay standing long. A few more good pulls on the rope and down it came. Never felled a tree by just pulling it over before! With the tree on the ground, out came my chainsaw and it was cut up into manageable chunks with little effort. Many of the branches were hollow or dead and brittle. The pieces were piled up along the wall, out of the way for now and the concrete rubble bagged up as hardcore for other garden projects.

 

18th & 22nd October 2023

The last strip of foundations by the railway, were completed on the 18th. Then there was a brief intermission on the work, to allow storm Babet to do its thing.



On the 22nd, the ground had dried up and the weather was dry, allowing me to add the next four paving slabs. The last slab wasn't laid, as that was where mix cement mixer was located. That slab also needed cutting, so I figured it would be easier to work there after the current four slabs had set.



23rd October 2023

The final paving stone was cut and laid on the 23rd, along with a 10 inch tall slab cut and fitted vertically to end the path and hold back the earth and gravel behind.

 

By late October, poor weather was the main problem. The next step was to clear out all the junk and dead plant matter that had built up behind the garage.

26th October ~ 5th November 2023

From late October to early November, I was working on the path behind the garage. There was a lot of earth to dig out, around two and a half 850Kg bulk bags worth. Foundations were prepared in the same manner as before, paving laid and repeat.



The area of the last three slabs was tarmac covered hardcore. It wasn't flat and was a bit too high, so I took an inch or so off the top by slicing it with the diamond cutter and breaking it out with a hammer and chisel.

 

The last stretch took two full paving slabs and a twelve inch cut slab, which were laid on November 5th. At some point, I needed to build a low retaining wall next to the path behind the garage, due to the ground height along side the path.



I planned to add a six feet tall fence, next to the garage door, blocking the path access from the front for better security.



I also need a low fence to fill the gap between my neighbour's fence and the Hawthorn, currently filled with a shipping pallet. We were well into the Autumn/Winter weather, so my next priority, as the weather allows, was the rebuilding of the garden wall, damaged by the tree.

 

12th November 2023

Tragedy struck on the 12th and it caused all sorts of chaos!
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Leaf on the line! All trains cancelled.

 

21st November 2023

After recovering from the leaf tragedy, over the next few days, I'd bought some timber to make a fence to fill in the gap beside the garage. All the parts were pre-cut and painted indoors ( in the warmth! ) before taking them out for fitting on the 21st.



28th November 2023

I'd dug and poured the foundations for the wall earlier in the month. Being such an old wall, it was just built on a row of bricks laid in the ground. I'd tie the rebuilt wall and my neighbour's conifer wall together, to help hold back the weight of soil from his higher garden. I got two courses laid on the 28th, but it was very cold, only a few degrees above zero. I covered the wall in fleeces and for a little while, blew warm air from a fan heater under the fleece to help cure the mortar. The proper Winter weather couldn't be far away and that was probably going to stop things for the year. I was doing quite well, being out from early February to the end of November.

 

30th November 2023

I woke up on the 30th, to find the world had gone white. I'd barely got over the leaf tragedy and now we had the "Wrong type of Snow!". All trains cancelled again! A replacement wheelbarrow service was introduced.



The garden looked wonderful in Winter Wonderland mode, but it wasn't going to help the work outside.



It was too cold to lay bricks as the mortar would freeze and while there are ways around that, I had no inclination to be out in the cold. The fleeces on the wall had already been covered in a plastic sheet and were now vanishing under the snow. That ended the work outdoors for the year, but there was still things I could do indoors.

One of those was decorating the hallway, which I knew was a big job. A long hall, with two 90 degree turns, eight doorways, an eight feet radiator to remove and lots of filling and sanding. Walls and ceiling needed painting and as it turned out, all the door frames, skirting and dado needed taking back to wood before being repainted.

 

6th December 2023

We were awoken by a loud bang, early morning on the 6th of December. A lady driver in a big BMW, skidded on ice while pulling out of the junction opposite to our house. The view one way isn't great, so I suspect she put her foot down to get out and then hit the ice on the crown of the camber on the road. From that point onwards, she was a passenger.

She skidded across the road, mounted the pavement, crashed into and demolished our front wall, ending her journey embedded in the wall and the base of the telegraph pole - the top eight to ten feet of which, snapped off due to the whiplash and crashed down onto the pavement beside the car. It wasn't until late February that repairs were completed under the car owner's insurance. Unfortunately, the builders couldn't find any bricks that were a good match to the 55 year old existing bricks.



12th January ~ 8th February 2024

The story has finally reached this year! With the cold weather arriving, I moved inside. On the 12th, I started building a wooden frame with a mesh infill, to keep the butterflies off the veggies. Everyone warned us about slugs, but nobody said anything about butterflies! On the 28th of January, I also started decorating the hallway. I mentioned it was a big job and in the end, it lasted for three months!