My run on Sunday followed the same route as the last couple of weeks, but I was slower… obviously I’m going to make my excuses below!
It seemed chillier, as if autumn was settling in earlier than normal, but only until I’d run the first mile or so, by which time I was nice and warm!
I didn’t feel up to a long run because I’d started on one of the summer 2014 garden projects the day before… removing a legacy step.
It looks like nothing at all, but the earth that I removed filled 40 small rubble bags, which Kim patiently ferried to the tip in her car, 8 at a time. Yup, they were that heavy, which meant that the car did a great job and we both got a thorough workout!
Lest I forget why it was such a very tiring day, I had also earlier dug out one of the big bamboo clumps, where it had been pushing the sleeper retaining wall apart on the other side of the garden. Though huge, I had to remove it because it was too densely packed to get a knife through.
Once out I carved it up into three parts, two of which are now in big pots, whilst the third is back in the original space looking as if nothing has happened.
Thus my run the next day wasn’t a fast one, although it was an enjoyable way to shake out some of the knots.
I managed the 5.75 miles in 58 minutes, a shade under 6 mph.
You’ll notice from the photos of the step above that I the retaining wall was now in the wrong place… frankly I had run out of of puff by the end of Saturday.
Having loosened my tired muscles with a run though, I got back to the task. I was hoping that beneath the wood cladding there might be a railway sleeper that I could easily move, but it was an original and rather well laid brick construction. If the house had been older then I may have suspected it to be part of an outhouse!
I set about taking the wall apart brick by brick… not such a very difficult job with a chisel and a club hammer, but my joints suffered as much as it’s joints did from the impacts!
Then Kim and I manhandled a full-sized railway sleeper out from its hideaway near the teahouse. Unfortunately there was collateral damage as we clipped one of the hibiscus bushes and overstressed a slightly rotten stem… now removed.
We lifted the sleeper onto four saw stands and I set to work with a manual saw to cut it to size. Meanwhile Kim started to tidy up the workbench in the garage and had all but finished in the time that it took me to work my way through it… I’m not sure whether this meant that I was slow or that the workbench was a real mess. Both, I suspect!
Finally I cut the earth back a little further, excavated a low trench and dropped the sleeper into place. I was pretty pleased with the result, especially as it only needed one small adjustment to be level and in the right place!
I then laid the pavers back down and filled in the gap with the remnant bricks from the wall to create a vaguely level area.
The temporary (prototype) state is not especially pretty, but it at least allows us contemplate how it should be finished.
So far this summer a new and hidden shed has been constructed, which has allowed the teahouse to be reclaimed for contemplation and now this… which leaves only bigger and more onerous jobs to do! Maybe next year?