Wednesday, 25th

We are now left with a largish area of semi-flat semi-clay land. We just need to dig a little trench through it to let the water escape - 18” deep and 20 metres long - involving several long-handled hand tools, the hammer drill, angle grinder, David, me and about 4 hours of seriously hard work. My main job was to help remove the loose soil/clay/stone from the trench and whisk it off in the wheelbarrow (uphill of course) and tip it over the side. I would have liked to have complained but David’s job of hacking, digging and grinding it out of the begrudging land looked a good deal worse. This was after all where the excavator had pranced about all the previous day compacting it down quite efficiently. Ah Luis you scamp, what a shame you didn’t bring the little bucket to dig out the trench as we asked you to, but no worries, we love it really.
By 3 o’clock we had got it dug out, just time for some cold pasta from the night before and a collapse until 4pm. Now for the easier task of putting in the underground tube through which excess rain water can drain and concreting over. Trouble is we have no gravel to make the concrete so we have to be ‘resourceful’. 25 minutes later we are returning in the Land Rover with 20 buckets of gravel which we have liberated from an extremely large heap – can’t tell you where exactly as then you would know as much as us.

Thankfully, we get it almost completed as the guests return.