Haunching

We got all the paving haunched this weekend so now it's pretty much done. There's still a lot of sand we need to sweep off, but there's no harm in that staying for a bit longer, as it fills up all the cracks between pavers. Hugh has turned into an expert cement mixer. Here he is with our trusty wheelbarrow

And here he is tucking cement in between the paving and the wall. It took a few hours to get through it all, and we got a fair few blobs of cement onto the pavers, but all in all it was easy enough. The mistake blobs brush off easily when it's dry, so now it's all ready to go with the planting! 

You can just about see our fruit sticks in the background. They are gradually filling up the space along the borders. No fruit this year except for a few teeny weeny peaches, but we should start getting a few bits and pieces next summer.

Very very very nearly finished ...

Richard did a fantastic job on the back yard but just ran out of time to complete it, so myself and Hugh put in the finishing touches over the weekend with lots of help from Dave.

I finished off laying the flat sections and did the brick cutting (much to the amusement of Mom who says we should be playing the baby Mozart and not "brick saw"). Richard had done most of this already so it didn't take too long. Also he had done the hard part of preparing the ground and making it properly flat. 

In the meantime, Hugh and Dave laid the pavers on the slope leading from the bottom to the middle section. Pavers on flat ground can be laid on sand, but the slopes needed to be laid directly into concrete. We had no idea where to start with this, so Dave was invaluable. They did a fantastic job of making a lovely slope, not an easy task. 

So this is what the place is looking like now. The flat levels still look yellow, but it's because we have heaps of sand on the pavers to fill the cracks. Next weekend we will do the haunching - patting concrete around the edges so the side pavers don't come loose when people stand on them. And we will sweep in the rest of the yellow sand and some white washed sand, which is very very fine grain and will fill up all the cracks.

And this is the view from the top corner of the garden. We will put a little table and chairs up here and will have a great view of the vegetables and chickens when it is all established.