my garden...

... otherwise known as the building site.

The puppies well & truly wrecked the grass in our back garden this year. They weren't entirely to blame, however. The unceasing rain played a large part too as without a modicum of sunshine the grass was never able to recover from the rigours of the puppies in their pen as the pen moved from place to place around the garden.

I wasn't wholly unhappy about the wrecked grass. You see, our back garden was an untame-able scramble of weeds, overgrown shrubs and even more overgrown hedge. The hedge was a disaster, about 20 metres long, 15 feet high*, needing to be cut 3-4 times a year and full of brambles and other unmentionables. Yes, that's right, was. Past tense.

While the puppies were in residence I called in a few fine folk to quote for the job of transforming the abomination into an orderly space I would actually like to spend time in. The hedge had to go. Because it was way too big for us to cut, it cost £150 each trim - yikes! And could I get anyone to hack it to a manageable height & width? Of course not, then it might need a £150 haircut only twice a year. The grass also had to go. Apart from the number the puppies did on it, it wasn't great grass anyway, more like couch grass. Just what I didn't need, more weeds.

As soon as the puppies left home, Jay & got to work. I'm not sure the photo illustrates the full
horror of the situation. The hedge was so much a bigger job than I could ever have imagined. "Oh, I can get rid of the green on top of the hump," I said confidently when faced with an astronomical quote for the whole shooting match.

Two saws, an axe and many blisters later the hedge top was, at last, no more. It has to be said that the final couple of metres were actually burned away when Tony & John moved in to do their thing because I couldn't get past the brambles. Horrid things. The brambles, that is, not the builders. The builders are wonderful.

So, the builders moved in and spent several days disposing of the rest of the green part of the hedge. For the hump and the remains of the grass, the toys came out. Who knew diggers came in my 2 favorite colours?















For the few days this sat on my drive I was hoping the bloke had left the key behind because I quite fancied having a go at driving. Sadly, the day they fired up that baby we were away visiting Jay's folks in Surrey so I missed all the fun. At last the digger did its thing and then was carried off to its next job. I wonder what all the neighbourhood cats fight over at night now that it's gone? If you're wondering who won the contest for digger ownership, it was Gink, who saw off 2 tabbies, a ginger and several black cats to claim his prize.

Pretty dramatic difference, huh?














And so, once the destruction was complete, the construction could begin.




























































So by Friday most of the work will be completed. Then I have a week to catch up a bit before the builders return to finish up the finer details. That's gonna be a lot of fence to paint...

And the next post will be the puppy update - promise! In the meantime, in case you dropped by to see puppies, not diggers, fences and concrete slabs, here is Maija tucking into her frozen carrot.

*Yes, I'm aware of mixing my measurement systems. What can I say? I was born in pre-metric Canada. survived Canadian metricization and now live in half-in-half Britain where you can get your milk by the litre or pint, order mince at the butcher in either grams, ounces, pounds (or even in handfuls, to be fair) and when you describe to the county council your plans for a fence they hold up the whole thing indefinitely because the height was given in feet, not metres. Yet everything to do with motors is still in imperial measurement. Miles away, miles per hour. Except fuel, which is sold by the litre. See what I mean?