Rock related injuries and the first stones moved into the pond!

Once we'd got the island stones in place things ground to a halt in the Japanese Garden - this was partly because it was Winter (the last stone was planted the weekend before Christmas 2007) and partly because putting the stone in caused me a bit of a problem.

For years I'd had a very small umbilical hernia - but it had never caused me any pain, even when pregnant. However, carting loads of rocks about and heaving the flintstones trolley up the garden had taken its toll and caused the hernia to enlarge slightly - but still not be a problem as I'd always stopped carrying stuff as soon as I'd become aware that it was begining to pull or ache.

True to form, the weekend before Christmas, I'd reverted to managerial duties (bossing everyone else about!) once I'd started to ache. I was directing operations about manouvering the big stone when it began to wobble - I was nearest, so jumped forward to push it back into a stable position before it fell.

Foolish or what?!

The resulting increase in the size of the hernia and the discomfort (okay, pain!) I was in meant that surgery was the only option, so February 2008 saw me ready to go under the knife. The surgery was a success .... unfortunately the recovery was less good as my body didn't like being messed about with and bits of me ground to a halt, resulting in the copious use of enemas and cathetars - not a time I like to dwell on too much really!

It took almost 5 months before I was anything like back to normal, although I was allowed light gardening duties before then - but the scar tissue I'd been left with mean that bending over or doing anything that squashed my insides was a bit of a n0-no for a while. Not good and I became increasingly frustrated by it all as I am not famed for my patience!

It also meant that Himself had to do most of the heavy work all last year and I still have to be careful about what I can and can't lug about.

Anyway, once I was sufficiently recovered, we decided to start getting some of the big stones onto the shelf around one side of the pond because I couldn't plant any pond plants until that was done - and I was just itching to get started on that as it would make it begin to look like a 'real' pond at last!

I'd decided that I wanted the pond to look as natural as it could be, so I imagined that a stream came down the mountain (?) into the garden and entered the pond from roughly where the right hand corner of the fruit cage is. In spring, this stream would carry the snow melt (yeah, yeah, I know - I've got a vivid imagination and I'm on the top of a hill in a town in the UK, but bear with me on this one...!) and rocks, stones, pebbles etc,` which would end up all mixed up together in a tumble of 'stuff', some of which would form a pebble beach, some would tumble a bit further - I'd got used to being laughed at for my fanciful ideas by this point, so was going to carry on regardless of my sceptics!

I decided that I needed a large stone to 'catch' the pebbles and form the beach so, having chosen the appropriate one - and I was told in no uncertain terms by Himself that I could only have ONE shot at this, so I had to choose the right stone first time (aagh, the pressure, the pressure....!), Himself then used the scaffold tower and chain pulley to lift the chosen stone up from where it had lain for about a year, levered the stone onto the flintstones trolley, dismantled the tower, pushed the trolley to the correct bit of the pond and rebuilt the tower over the trolley in the new position. I was still not allowed to pull/push heavy stuff, so I watched from the sidelines whilst making admiring and supportive noises and providing drinks!

Proof of drinks provision - some days there were chocolate biscuits too!

Ooops, I've just realised that some of the plants that were under the kitchen window last summer when this photo was taken are still there! Oh well, they've survived ...and they'll get planted this year! (hopefully)

Having got everything positioned, Himself filled a donkey (a huge bag with handles at the four corners, used for carrying heavy loads for the building industry) with some of our sandstone rubble to use as a counterweight - because the stone had to be lifted up and out beyond the far side of the tower to get over the shelf.

The counterweight wasn't heavy enough and the scaffold nearly toppled into the pond, so extra weight was added - by me. I was that counterweight!

I have to say that it is probably one of the most uncomfortable jobs I've had to do in a long line of uncomfortable jobs! I had some very sharp bits of stone sticking in some very soft places!

The stone in place on the shelf.

All the stones that were placed on the pond shelf had a layer of fleece liner underneath them to prevent any damage to the butyl liner and so avoid leaks. Himself's idea - I wouldn't have thought of that!

The first layer of pebbles on the beach.

I got ridiculously excited about putting this stone in place and playing with, sorry - placing the pebbles as it finally felt like we were getting somewhere - probably because it was such visible progress, whereas a lot of what we'd done in the digging, soil moving, leveling etc was 'hidden'.

It was a good day!