Druidic Dabblings and General Twaddle !!

[V8Druid]

As you may have guessed ....'twere a busy weekend last weekend .... lil miss had her third birthday Saturday .... the swing (despite being in place for several days hadn't been noticed ) and she had a great surprise to find her very own, waiting for her Saturday morning ....
was a bit of a hit

A lot of the day spent at her favorite farm park later on,. with her furry friends .....

and lots of soft play toys for her and lil' cuzzin Shem ...

followed by a bash down the village hall, on the Sunday for her 'pals', with one of granny's 'specials' as centre piece ... GF of course

Pam and I have spent the rest of the week trying to recover ...... but thwarted by a hectic week ....
An old friend....guy who came with me when I bought the 'Drema in Norwich and spent a lot of his time helping me clearing my old workshop ....

..... got out of bed Monday and promptly had a stroke .... not good .... so been back and fore with his missus to see him at a specialist unit 30 miles away.

Then had a friend from a forum I 'frequent' spend Thursday morning with me, drooling over and getting to know the subtleties of 'Drema ownership and seeing just what she'd do .... he wants one and we've found a suitable candidate in Sweden, he's in the process of negotiating on and planning a trip home for it

SVAB Prop. tilty clad already .... lucky sod

and plenty of spare plumbing

Plus of course ... we've had the usual Clara duties 3 days this week ......... so, been a far from recuperative week

 

[V8Druid]

so ...... woke to this ... this morning ........

on December the 10th 2017 ......... if anyone has this on repeat order ........... please cancel the order

............ then had four times this much in March this year ........ please .... no more white s**t this winter

for the first time in over a week it's not blowing a gale and peeing down, this evening ..... been a wild week+

 

[TiltyShaun]

You had me worried for a second!!! Snow destroys Christmas Tree sales as I found out last year!!

 

[V8Druid]

You had me worried for a second!!! Snow destroys Christmas Tree sales as I found out last year!!

thought that might get a few going ...... unreal last year ..... let's all hope the white stuff stays as just a memory

 

[Shovelhands]

thought that might get a few going ...... unreal last year ..... let's all hope the white stuff stays as just a memory

FFS, I saw your post this morning and thought wtf! Was even messaging someone over your way asking if he’d got snow!

 

[V8Druid]

FFS, I saw your post this morning and thought wtf! Was even messaging someone over your way asking if he’d got snow!

well that made me chuckle James ..... year's gone bloody quick though, eh ??

 

[Shovelhands]

well that made me chuckle James ..... year's gone bloody quick though, eh ??

It certainly has! Incredible.....still have a huge list of things that should have been done in 2018!

 

[V8Druid]

It certainly has! Incredible.....still have a huge list of things that should have been done in 2018!

LOL - you an' me both Boyo ..... most of which ain't gonna happen this year ........ I have got a flat, almost sorted, patch though

doesn't seem like over a year - just - since I spent two days loading this lot out (Chris @Pond digger )

in some pretty atrocious weather, on / off .... then it really snowed, as you saw earlier ..... for over 30 hours

 

[V8Druid]

well ain't had a lot to say lately ... been too piggin' wet to do a lot ...... at some point it must've been dry enough for the odd hour to drill this ....

.... lump of oak for a mantle shelf for the step-daughter's house ..... had to be perfectly square ....

and a dead 12mm hole for these ......

interesting fitting .... with an offset for leveling up with ... assuming one gets the holes in the wall on centres and square too .... I did, but not before finding a lump of steel right where the one had to go, about 50mm into the masonry .... took some getting through with a 10mm .... was 12mm thick !! f**k knows what it was doing in there

anyway .... yon mantle is gonna need a 'kin big crow bar to get it back off the wall .... forgot a pic

we did get two whole hours rain free, yesterday morning and as everything is absolutely saturated, thought it'd be a fair use of the time to run the roller over the patch as it's all had such a wetting ..... managed to get over damned near everything accessible, 'fore it pee-ed down again and it went down pretty well - yet again

got the odd small puddle in a few depressions, beside the 'Drema (that you can't see there) but on the whole it ain't bad and drains really well.
can see the water from the perimeter channel literally running into the far end of the main centre drain and disappearing nicely.
more black stuff and a load of clean 40mm required in the new year ... get the channels filled and topped up to a level and then black up to the finish level. Gonna have to re-locate a load of stuff out the way (somewhere? ) to get that far end all sorted to one finished level

Also need to find a home for those two bloody rocks

these two have become total carpet potatoes - aside from the odd two minute scurry outside, they're perfectly content to chill and let it rain

don't think they'll be suffering cabin fever anytime soon

 

[doobin]

Looking damn tidy mate.

 

[V8Druid]

Looking damn tidy mate.

cheers Doob .... it's remarkable just how much it'll go down with each pass ...... an' it's had a few now .... It'll get treated to a final pass with a big ride on, once it's all up to where I wanna finish at .... I'll recruit Pam for a few shifts .... she had a whale of a time when I did my yard


we were both a bit younger in June '02

what're peoples thoughts on topping off with 20t of quarry dust -- worked well in the yard

 

[Jimoz]

Yeh I might do that too. Just had driveway dug out and stoned up at New place. Used recycled which wasn't the best load. Gonna be awhile till I block pave so could blind with some dust for now make nicer underfoot when wet without bringing levels up

 

[Mogman]

what're peoples thoughts on topping off with 20t of quarry dust -- worked well in the yard

I would have plannings with a splash of gas oil, quarry dust is ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,well dusty

 

[V8Druid]

I would have plannings with a splash of gas oil, quarry dust is ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,well dusty

found it made a good blinding between the planings though Mog .... was only a very thin top coat spread about and rolled in ... never found it dusty, even if we did have any dry spells ..... made a hell of a nice finish to the surface and seemed to bind it all together well jury is still out on the old splash of red on planings .... some swear by it ..... others don't .... and'd make a hell of a mess if it didn't perform as anticipated

 

[Left hooker]

Sea sand has done a good job in a carpark for national trust on the plainings we put down just a fine dusting blown over and tracked in by cars looks and is as hard as proper tar that had been layed
It's a beach carpark by the way

 

[V8Druid]

Sea sand has done a good job in a carpark for national trust on the plainings we put down just a fine dusting blown over and tracked in by cars looks and is as hard as proper tar that had been layed
It's a beach carpark by the way

cheers Stu .. very interesting ..... 'spose the sand fills all the gaps, much like the 'quarry dust' did .... gave a it a hell of a smooth solid surface .... the sand'd stop anything from shifting about, I guess and still drain nicely

 

[Shovelhands]

A question Gra, if I may. Your creating this fantastic hard standing area, but I thought your plans were to build a shed? Or is that not on the agenda anymore?

 

[V8Druid]

A question Gra, if I may. Your creating this fantastic hard standing area, but I thought your plans were to build a shed? Or is that not on the agenda anymore?

You may James ..... the boss has had a change of plans ...... therefore so have I

apparently it's going to be much more suited to sitting where me boxes are ..... and'll give me an enclosed (out of sight) 'yard' behind it, up where everything is sat currently ....... aside from the logistical dilemma of shifting three loaded boxes to a new location, off to the one side, where the rock got dug out, it does make a lot of sense. (I've had the conversation with me crane man a while back)

aiming for a 40'W x 45'L building so essentially a similar foot print to that already occupied by me boxes, but wider and slightly longer, with the solid pine end facing the house and the 'open'/door end facing the 'yard' / N. East, which'll keep 95% of the weather off the 'open' end, much as the box doors are currently ... and'll allow for 'expansion' (another bay - or two ) at a later date if required

See if I can't find a decent/recent aerial view and lay it onto that for yers

so that's why that end is getting a concerted effort at creating a 'good' hardstand area

 

[V8Druid]

A question Gra, if I may. Your creating this fantastic hard standing area, but I thought your plans were to build a shed? Or is that not on the agenda anymore?

this is roughly the 'new' , revised plan James ..... obviously all very approximate

boxes are gonna have to remain, until said shed is able to accommodate their contents

You got me pondering it this morning, so, as it's actually not rained in several hours and been blowing a hooley, grounds pretty dry, so got the tape out and had a bit of a suss of this and a few other possible options ..... [hopefully you can see the marks ] .... and make a bit of sense from the above.... really need to borrow a drone for half an hour ..... one going cheap up Gatwick way --- apparently

need to get up in the air a bit really

 

[Stock]

Druid usually refered to as the "toe of batter"..........................................