A wet and wild week of weather meant one of two things. Either get the kayak out and get in the rivers, or get the wheelbarrow out and start the long overdue work in the garden. I was actually quite keen for both, but in the end opted for the long overdue renovation of The Cottage grounds. Over the past years, the lawn has been steadily taking over the driveway, and despite several clearance attempts, the battle had been lost, along with the garden path.

And thus started phase one, of the driveway reclamation project…

It was pretty physical work, and ideally a small digger would have been employed, but little by little the ground was won back as the carpet of turf was removed.

I did get a few respite walks to stretch out, whenever Clare had a break from her work. The river was looking at a nice level, but now I’d started, the project needed to see some level of completion before it could be left. Otherwise rather than just having wet feet when I walk from the house to get into the car, I’d have muddy ones as well!

Eventually, I got things looking reasonable and a defining distinction between lawn and driveway.

Next up was laying the weed-proof barrier that I’d found at Fort Martin last week.

Then the final hurdle was the logistics of getting a delivery of fresh chippings…

That will do for now – need a bit of rain now to wash it all clean!

Now back to more mountain based stuff….