A Hard Winter at The Garden...

After building the roofing joists, I ordered in the corrugated roofing sheets. Much of what came next has been down to my brother in law, Paul Hoskin. A retired civil engineer and a dab hand in cracking on with a job, as well as head for height.

We started to lay the sheets on to the roof. Paul, helped me up to give him a hand. My job was to screw down the top half and Paul’s the bottom. It wasn’t easy to concentrate as my concern was being careful not to fall, and not wanting Paul to fall as he was bouncing around the roof like it was 3 inches off the ground.

A week later we had high winds, and my lack of focus on the job in hand meant I had missed two vital screws and a sheet right in the middle got torn off. So again, thanks to Paul he rolled back 5 sheets and battened down a new sheet. It sounds simpler than it was, but the wooden frame was so well treated every screw was very tight to screw in, often destroying the screwhead and if one had to come out, it would take ages.

With roof more or less complete, I proceeded to clad the cabin with feather-edge wood. This wasn’t a quick job either, as I was mostly on my own and I had to make sure it looked straight. Also, time was spent cutting round the cabin posts and doorway. I had run out of wood for this, so Paul suggested we cracked on with the ramp. Our, Army friend Andy, was going to help us with this, but had been too busy with his job, plus the pandemic had gotten worse with another lockdown. Paul was family and within our bubble, and he looked at Andy’s plans and felt would could achieve this.

We had to adapt to make sure we could extend the ramp long enough to get a 4 degree angle, to make it easier for wheelchairs to climb it. So we built the frame similar to the decking. Then used the remainder of the composite decking we generously received for free from Jewson. This took us about 2 weeks to complete, having only last week fit safety rails and runners to stop people falling off.

It’s now halfway through January and the cabin is almost complete (externally). I have more feather-edge wood so will complete the other 2 sides. Paul is fitting guttering and once that is done we will be ready to complete the garden.

In February, we will have a Disabled Access Eco-Loo Composting Toilet, from https://eco-loos.com . We will also have about 28 tonne of hardcore delivered. We will also bring back the JCB’s to get it laid and flattened. Then finally cellular field grids to allow vehicles to deliver people to the garden.

We aim to virtually open 1st March and we will be giving everyone a virtual tour of the garden. Why on St David’s Day? Why not? It is a proud Welshman building this.