All In All It’s Just Something Something

Fences and posts down, concrete foundation curing (28 August)

The massive pile of bricks have mocked me since I only used enough to put in the new kitchen window. The time has come, however, to use these up.

In most of Britain, looking out into your back garden (not usually a euphemism) you own the border to the right and are responsible for it. If you are the left-most resident of a terrace block, then both are yours. I don’t have to fret about the back wall since it is definitely mine as half of it peers out over municipal property and the other half is separated from the next structure’s wall by a half meter gap.

The wall out the right hand side, though, had some rubbish fence panel inserts held up with poorly installed gapped fence posts. When I pulled these down, the need for a foundation to support the new wall became obvious (our house’s previous owner only did enough to the panels to straddle about half their width on her side). We levelled this up then took out every other brick (the ones terminating a run) so that I could feather in the extension and still have one cross brick every row to lend strength to the structure). The topmost one remains for now to hold up the capstone (we need to source some of these) and the bottommost one is there to trigger a new one every half rise/half run.

The progress was catch as catch can what with Jimi’s medical issues and our 2+ week illness mid-September. The first full weekend of October, it stood thus (note the new line of bricks working in … these were the ones Jimi took such an interest in the day before taking ill):

It rained every Saturday thereafter and you have to wait until ‘social hours’ to do anything on Sundays so getting a couple of lines in per week became the norm. As I reached the top but still didn’t have the half round, decorative blue bricks — we’ll do those in the spring — I tidied the sloppily spilled mortar with wire brushes and repointed both sides. Painting to match the rest of the garden walls is also on the short list but here we are, only three months behind plans.