The day my brother came to help!

During this past week whilst I was languishing in my sickbed, racked with fever and a hacking cough, with Vaseline being my facial moisturiser of choice and necessity, my brain (having nothing better to do with itself) sidled off into a corner and began to ponder on some of life's imponderable mysteries: why was I wrapped in an invisible electric blanket?, where on earth was the 'off' switch?, why can't I successfully grow carrots?, how come I can only see the hills on the other side of the valley in winter? (yeah, yeah - I know it's because the trees are bare! I told you I was pyrexic!), where does the horizon go on grey, snowy days? and - The Biggy - when would my tea house be finished?

I still don't know the answer to the last one (or as to why I can't grow carrots!), but I thought it was time I caught up a bit on where we've got to. My big brother, Our Dave, (not to be confused with my father-in-law, David, who helped put the frame up!) came up for the weekend in July to help put the rafters on.

Introducing Our Dave!

Some of you may now be wondering why he's called Our Dave? Easy - I'm from Yorkshire, that's how we talk! (Himself's NOT from Yorkshire and therefore he speaks posher than I do!) British readers will be nodding their heads sagely at this point but, for the benefit of non-Brits, I'll explain:

In Yorkshire, immediate family members are often referred to as 'Our ..........', to denote to outsiders that they are family. I'm 'Our Liz' or 'Our Kid' (little sister). Some families even talk about 'our mam' and 'our dad'. 'Me' can also be substituted for 'Our' - eg; 'me dad', 'me brother'. Quick, easy, avoids long explanations! HOWEVER, you've got to get the pronunciation right - Yorkshire has quite a flat, guttural intonation, so 'our' is really pronounced 'ower' and you have to be able to hear that w! So he's really 'Ower Dave', oh, and 'Me ...' is pronounced 'Mi' and Monday is pronounced Mundi, but there you go!

So, anyway, back to the tea house!

First Himself and Ower Dave re-jigged the scaffold tower to make a safe working platform.

Health and Safety would have had a field day, but it was actually a lot more solid than it looks - honest!

....take a whole load of wood and turn them into rafters - your time starts ... now!

Standing 6 ft up on a slightly wobbly scaffold tower is not the best position to try to cut precision wedges!

One of many 'bird's beak' wedges carefully cut by Himself and Ower Dave.

Accuracy is paramount.

The first rafter in place and upright at last!

The odd shaped piece at the apex is just a temporary fixture to assist with stability.

It's quite difficult to see from this angle but Himself had marked out every single rafter and taken them down to school where the D&T technician had cut them all with a 5* curve along one long side.(oh the perks of me being a Governor!) Himself had then glued the cut piece onto the other side to keep the width of the rafter whilst giving it a very gentle overall curved shape to make the bottom edge flick out a bit - just like a 'proper' tea house!

Sighting along the rafters prior to the main beam going in.

Finishing off the day by fixing a couple of batons for extra stability - you can never have too much temporary extra stability!

...... and thanks for your help Ower Dave! :)

The frame goes up at last!

Thank you to everyone for your concern about David following his recent surgery. I am very pleased and relieved to announce that all danger has passed, he is well on the way to recovery, had his first short, chilly walk around the garden yesterday and is thoroughly bored - always a good sign!

Given all the above progress, I thought it was time for the promised post on the day David came up to help us build the tea house frame on site - because, as Himself commented, David was absolutely the best person for the job! As a surgeon, David has had to be thorough, meticulous, precise, not panic when things go wrong and not rush things (sound familiar?!), all of which suited Himself down to the ground for putting the frame together!

First though, I had yet more painting of the 3 coat sealant to do!

The dry beams and posts were carried onto site - about 100 yeards up the garden!

Himself had earlier removed the posts that he, I and the Gnomelets had previously erected twice (*sigh*) then he and David began to lay out the pieces like a 3D puzzle.

Daring to glue the first joint!

Of course, being Himself and David, a few screws went in too ..... just to be on the safe side you understand - can't be too careful!

Checking the diagonals to ensure the corner angles were all even.

The long side of the frame in place, levels being checked - and, oh look, I'm balanced on a wobbly plank over water again! I am convinced that Himself thinks that if he puts me on a plank across the pond often enough, at some point I WILL fall in - and that'll be his payback for all his hard work. Mwahhaahaaa!

Some joints needed a bit of persuasion to go together after glueing, so we brought out our trusty strop and hand ratchet (originally used for pulling me - well, the Land Rover actually, out of muddy holes in off road driving competitions!). It works just as well for pulling chunks of wood together though!

Guess who got to walk the plank again?

Squatting down to put the strop round the bottom beam didn't make me fall in even when Himself 'accidentally' kicked the other end of the plank, so he then had me up on my tiptoes to shove the strop as high up as I could reach - ostensibly to pull the top posts together, but I knew his cunning little plan.........!

David meanwhile happily carried on glueing the next set of joints, seemingly oblivious to his son's nefarious tricks to dunk me in the drink!


Don't be fooled by that innocent expression of concentration as he tightens up the ratchet, he was really planning his next move!

Having failed to get me wet, Himself resorted to putting up the back wall frame and muttering to himself about "....her improved balance.... chunter, chunter"! David happily carried on holding posts in position.


Moving swiftly on to erect the long side wall against our boundary.

Got to keep checking those diagonals boys!

The strop was used for fine-ish adjustment.

Bracing was put in place to provide some short-term stability and rigidity to the structure whilst the concrete went off.........

Each upright post had a stainless steel 'foot' which was concreted into a post hole. Of course plain simple concrete wasn't considered strong enough(!), so stainless steel wall ties were threaded through the foot and angled into the concrete - just to make sure!!!

As Technician, Third Class still working on my promotion prospects, I was allowed to pour and shape the cement - making sure that it sloped away from the foot for drainage.

As Gordon Ramsey might say........."Framework -Done"!


and I still hadn't fallen in!

Return to the Japanese Garden.....!

After all the fun of our French holiday, I had to come back to earth with a bump and get on with treating and sealing the wood for the tea house ... so I decided to do another tea house themed post in the hope that I might actually move the blog into real time, rather than flirting with the work we did last summer!

However, in order to get us there, let me take you back in time .......... yes, to last summer, 2008.
The top pond was done - the rocks were all in place and I'd snuck a bit of planting in when Himself wasn't looking! The majority of the stream was completed to our satisfaction, but the last couple of feet below the bottom bridge to the bottom pond still only had rocks plonked on them to keep the slabs from moving.


My next task was to finish moving the vast pile of top soil that I had dug out of the pond and dumped by the laurel. This had made the land at the side of the stream way too high, so the soil had to go - again! One day I'll work out where I'll ultimately want soil or rocks or whatever and put the stuff there in the first place rather than shift it all several times!


In the first photo I'd begun digging out - but I was being a bit cautious about the soil near the streamside rocks. I didn't really move that bit of soil very far - surprise, surprise! I backfilled behind the pond liner that edged the stream and made sure the stones were securely in place. I then pushed soil down all the gaps and made it level with the tops of the rocks so that they looked more bedded-in and permanent.


I shifted about 8-10 inches soil depth over an area of about 15 feet by 8 feet. That's a LOT of soil! I only went as far as the pile of stones by the tree - but it was plenty far enough! Today I've been digging out and moving (sigh!) the last of the soil by the tree.

The pile of tree slices with the red box on top are Himself's solution to keeping the pond filter out of direct sunlight ......... I'd have just put a bag over it, but hey!

Although many things have changed in the Japanese garden since this time last year, neither the stream below the bridge nor the bottom pond have - yet!.............. they STILL aren't finished and STILL look exactly the same as in this photo!!!



Once I'd moved most of the soil I was able to level out what was left and put the stepping stones in place. I carefully placed them all, took the photo, dug the holes, sunk each one into place and got them all nice and level. The next time I looked, some idiot had put them all in a straight line!!!

Can't have been me .......... I don't do straight lines!


Japanese gardens are supposed to take you on a journey of discovery, with new things being revealed as you go along. You're not supposed to see it all immediately - a staight line of stepping stones meant that we'd be able to see the tea house from the bottom path. I knew full well that I'd have to dig 'em all up and reposition them ....... but it turned out that they were quite useful as a short cut as they were - so we left them like that until this spring!




Not a lot was done on the garden over winter - because it was cold and wet with lots of snow and we were doing the renovations on the inside of the house then. You know, I've heard about this thing called 'time off' ............ Anyway, by this spring (- yes, we've made it into 2009!!) we were ready to start again. I set a deadline for completion by my birthday in April. HA HA ! but then we looked at what there still was to do - it was never going to happen by my birthday, not this year's one anyway! Still ... ever the optimist!


We had to clear the topsoil from where the tea house is going to go. This coincided with having some huge laurels chopped right back lower down the garden nearer the house and me taking the opportunity to reshape the border which had expanded along with the laurel. Most, no - ALL the plants, shrubs and bushes in the border had died because they had been smothered by the laurel so the dead remains had to be cleared out - which I did during the week.

We roped in Calamity and the BeanPole to help. I marked out the new border with my trusty hose pipe and transplanted all the plants that were growing in what was going to be grass back into the border area. ( I confess - I also had a trip the the nursery earlier in the week and bought a few goodies so that the border didn't look too empty!)


They dug out the soil from the tea house base and transfered it down the garden to raise the level of the soil next to the new border. Somehow Calamity managed to persuade the BeanPole to do most of the digging and hauling the wheel barrow while Calamity did the easy job of spreading and leveling the soil!


The area was then seeded and Himself borrowed the brassica cage (which wasn't yet in use) and made a cage to protect the grass seed from the pigeons - and very successful it was too!


Whilst all this was going on, we also moved the fruit cage back about a foot to give us a bit more room at the back of the tea house - but there are no photos of that as it took me, Himself, First-Born, Last-Born, Calamity and the BeanPole to shift it, so there was no one to play photographers!

But look what I found in the pond that day - a natural frog spawn heart!



I was quite tired by the Sunday night!