Good start!

Blessed with beautiful weather this weekend, we took full advantage and began clearing the garden.

After a lot of the small trees and over grown shrubs were cut down, we unearthed many man hole covers.

Andy's two friends Jason and Ben were round helping and Ben and Andy decided to pull up the man hole covers and take a peek. 

Then Ben decided to explore our old cesspit....

Obviously something to do with the old pump system to the Gooding's estate, they worked out it wasn't anything to do with our current septic tank after all...

Andy wanted to leave them uncovered to show the architect we are meeting on Tuesday, and thus began a debate about if people could sue us if they trespassed on our land and fell down one. 

Jason looked after our fire (oil drum with holes and lid cut off - 23 quid off eBay!) and I continued to chop. It really is amazing how much room there is now. Don't get me wrong, it's still a small plot, but so much was covered by trees and shrubs that actually, it's not a bad sized garden for the size of the house.

All in all, it was a productive Saturday  ending with Andy, Ben, Ben's fiancée and my good pal Lottie Booth and myself going for dinner at the local.

Sunday it was just Andy and I and we decided it would be a good idea to take the shed down. With the digger. Andy's little face when he was smashing that thing up was like a kid at Christmas. Bless him.

 

Everything in it was either eaten by Wood worm or just rotted away. We just need to get a skip now to put it all in. Not sure how a skip lorry will fit down the lane though....we will let them worry about that when they deliver it.

Before the day was out, Andy thought it would be a good idea to attempt to take a tree down with just the two of us. 

Half way through his cut, the chainsaw packed up and he had to go all the way back to Newbury to get some tools. So I stayed behind and tried to dig the roots of the bushes up. Which was bloody hard work!!

Got some visits from some mice and a pheasant and then 2 different sets if locals stopped to chat to me (that weekend, about 6 different people stopped and chatted to us over all - all very friendly and excited to see the place being worked on).

Then my Mum and Jack came over with a flask of coffee and some biscuits!

Jack helped Andy cut down one of the two trees which I was relieved about.

Andy chopped it up and moved it off the field as we were starting to lose light.  Well sort it out in the week, and attempt the felling of the final tree!

All in all, a back breaking but successful weekend! Thanks to everyone who came and helped. Same again next weekend, yeah? And it's a double whammy bank holiday!