July 13 (2013)

This is where the new pond will go. Currently it’s a gravelled area with potted plants:-

Step 1 – Move all of the pots. Some of them are concrete, and damn heavy:-

 

Step 2 – Remove the gravel:-

 

 

July 14

First trench. Don’t judge me; this clay soil is hard to dig – it sticks to the spade like glue. Plus it’s hot:-

Plus I took the afternoon off to go see Pacific Rim. It was disappointing. Sort of reminded me of a Japanese Manga film, but in real life.

 

July 15

2.5 trenches – It’s too hot for digging:-

 

July 16

Finished digging the trench for the wall foundation.

Blocks, ballast and cement delievered. Moved 180 blocks from the front to the back:-

 

 

July 17

Started pouring foundation. Not sure how you make sure it’s up to the same level all the way round.

Also went to see a man about hiring a small excavator, cos I really don’t fancy digging out the hole in the middle; the trenches were hard enough.

 

July 18 and 19

Poured some more foundation. Wheelbarrow has a slow puncture, so had to keep blowing that up.

 

August 21

Weather and other things meant it’s taking a bit longer than I wanted, but now the foundation for the wall is now poured, and I’m ready to dig the hole:-

 

August 22

With this:-

which was damn good fun to use.

Of course, in typical British summer style, after four days of blistering heat it starts pouring with rain the moment the excavator is delivered. Bah.

Waited till about 12 for the rain to stop. No such luck, so looks like I’m getting wet.

A few hours later, I have a hole in the ground, and a big pile of what goes for soil in these parts, which is basically clay. And the 2 inches of rain this morning didn’t really help matters. But hey-ho:-

Will have to tidy up the hole by hand as it was too much faffing about trying to use the digger.

 

September 22

Bad weather and other things meant progress stopped for a while. But managed to start doing the block work today:-

 

September 28 (2013)

Managed to do some more block work today, with the help of my brother (thanks bruv):-

Unfortunately (or typically) rain stopped play mid afternoon. So we went and played some GTA-V.

 

June 26 (2014)

Finally had the will power, and time, to do some more:-

 

August 23 (2014)

 

August 24 (2014)

Had a go at creating a 3D model of what I hope it will look like when finished, but discovered that the 3D printer can’t do very thin vertical structures:-

 

August 30 (2014)

 

August 31 (2014)

Have a tenant already …

Nearly done, but have run out of sand.

 

October 11 (2014)

Finsihed the block work a couple of weeks ago (forgot to take a picture).

I got a cheap submerislble pump from Screwfix to pump out the water that was in the hole.

Suprising how soft the mud was at the bottom of the hole; I was sinking nearly up to my knees.

 

Got some pond liner underlay and liner from PondKeeper.co.uk. I went a bit mad and got 8² meters:-

 

I started to fill it with the hose pipe, but it started raining …

 

October 14 (2014)

A week later, we’ve had enough rain to fill it:-

And the walls haven’t all given way. Which is a bonus.

 

October 31 (2014)