The Great Terrace of Lanoy
The Great Wall of China is a mammoth construction, a massive fortification made of stone brick and earth. Some say it is so colossal it can be detected by a satellite orbiting the earth.
The Great Terrace of Lanoy is beginning to have similar dimensions....
A little patio was at the side of the main house when we moved in. It was overgrown and a total mess. The large oil tanks lives here and there was a pretty little small stone built out house outdoor lavatory (dunny) . In a moment of my inherited 'McGinnes Madness' I designed a patio/terrace 48 square meters in size that would encompass the side of the house and also run along the entire 30 meter length at the front of the house. To be topped off with delabole slate, slate chippings, granite steps and stone balustrades.... a mother of all patios, in fact a patio of Grand Designs !!
Back in June, a beardy mate in a mini digger arrived and we excavated large trenches to the front of the house. These would be the footing for the heavy duty retaining wall required to hold back the 42 tons of earth rock and gravel that would form the base of the new enlarged patio. Then a lorry with a crane arrived and off loaded 10 tons of gravel , 4 tons of sand in large dumpy bags, 365 concrete blocks and a pallet load of bags of cement.
The cats have had great fun this summer chasing each other around the building site, jumping from one pile of block, to the next, and the next and walking through wet cement leaving trails of little kitty cat paw prints behind them. The builders have discovered much to their disgust, the kittens like the softness of the sand contained in dumpy bags for pooping in.. it saves them having to dig holes in the hard earth with their delicate kitten paws. However, one kitten game i really don't approve of is them crawling under the ton weight pallets of blocks playing hide and seek with each other. I shout at them, wince and hold my breath until they re emerge out the other side...
The dunny was supposed to be re roofed and made pretty again and was going to be a little garden store. I arrived home from work one evening back in June and found the builders had removed the roof ready to re slate it and make it watertight. Once the slates were removed you could see the extensive rot and wood worm infestation in the timber, the whole roof structure needed to be re made rather than just re slating the original wood , so in a flash, a split second decision I said to the builder. Don't bother re roofing it... tear it down instead... which they promptly did the next day!
I came home from work the following day to find a large pile of rubble on the patio.. dunny gone !
( I didn't tell his Nibs it had been demolished instead of being re built, so he had rather a surprise when he came home the following weekend)
The patio is now well underway.. we had a bit of a set back with rain, rain and more rain and a sick builder - due to getting wet in the rain, so for the past few weeks not much has been happening with the'big build' Its been more like the big watery hole in the ground .... However today work has re commenced...
other Lanoy news: .......
Mum, helped some wall paper 'mysteriously' 'peel off' the wall whilst I was working in Dorset the other day,
She was house sitting... I came home from work for her to tell me that the wall paper in the drawing room had 'peeled off' all by itself !
'Well that is most peculiar' i quizzed her. 'I was in there the other day , and it wasn't peeling off then'. How could it have possibly peeled off in just one day? 'Its damp' she told me. 'Yes I know it is' I replied..' I could see a few dark marks showing on the paper'. I'm waiting to see how bad it is before i have to replace that area or have the wall tanked or re plastered or damp proofed.. ' Its not just marks'...she kept on... 'its peeled off !' I went into the drawing room to investigate only to find 2 whole strips of paper had been peeled off up to about waist height !! 'How the hell did that happen' !! i was fuming..... 'I told you...its damp'...she said again. 'Well i cant understand why it was OK yesterday...but today its 3ft off the wall !!' i replied..... As she left the room..I heard some muttering from her ...... 'well I may have helped it a little'..... SO now i have 2 flappy lengths of very expensive wallpaper hanging off my walls!!!
We cooked our tea on the bonfire yesterday......
We cut loads of overgrown Rhododendrons down several weeks ago, left them to dry off and this weekend we had a big bonfire to burn it all away. We lit the bonfire on Saturday morning, Sunday the embers were still red hot. So we added more tree debris and re started the fire.. Monday the embers were still glowing, so we wrapped large potatoes in foil and buried them in the base of the fire pit. Went for a walk down the valley and left them roasting for several hours..OH wow! they tasted delicious when we had them for out tea at 5 o'clock yesterday!!
The Great Terrace of Lanoy is beginning to have similar dimensions....
A little patio was at the side of the main house when we moved in. It was overgrown and a total mess. The large oil tanks lives here and there was a pretty little small stone built out house outdoor lavatory (dunny) . In a moment of my inherited 'McGinnes Madness' I designed a patio/terrace 48 square meters in size that would encompass the side of the house and also run along the entire 30 meter length at the front of the house. To be topped off with delabole slate, slate chippings, granite steps and stone balustrades.... a mother of all patios, in fact a patio of Grand Designs !!
Back in June, a beardy mate in a mini digger arrived and we excavated large trenches to the front of the house. These would be the footing for the heavy duty retaining wall required to hold back the 42 tons of earth rock and gravel that would form the base of the new enlarged patio. Then a lorry with a crane arrived and off loaded 10 tons of gravel , 4 tons of sand in large dumpy bags, 365 concrete blocks and a pallet load of bags of cement.
The cats have had great fun this summer chasing each other around the building site, jumping from one pile of block, to the next, and the next and walking through wet cement leaving trails of little kitty cat paw prints behind them. The builders have discovered much to their disgust, the kittens like the softness of the sand contained in dumpy bags for pooping in.. it saves them having to dig holes in the hard earth with their delicate kitten paws. However, one kitten game i really don't approve of is them crawling under the ton weight pallets of blocks playing hide and seek with each other. I shout at them, wince and hold my breath until they re emerge out the other side...
The dunny was supposed to be re roofed and made pretty again and was going to be a little garden store. I arrived home from work one evening back in June and found the builders had removed the roof ready to re slate it and make it watertight. Once the slates were removed you could see the extensive rot and wood worm infestation in the timber, the whole roof structure needed to be re made rather than just re slating the original wood , so in a flash, a split second decision I said to the builder. Don't bother re roofing it... tear it down instead... which they promptly did the next day!
I came home from work the following day to find a large pile of rubble on the patio.. dunny gone !
( I didn't tell his Nibs it had been demolished instead of being re built, so he had rather a surprise when he came home the following weekend)
The patio is now well underway.. we had a bit of a set back with rain, rain and more rain and a sick builder - due to getting wet in the rain, so for the past few weeks not much has been happening with the'big build' Its been more like the big watery hole in the ground .... However today work has re commenced...
other Lanoy news: .......
Mum, helped some wall paper 'mysteriously' 'peel off' the wall whilst I was working in Dorset the other day,
She was house sitting... I came home from work for her to tell me that the wall paper in the drawing room had 'peeled off' all by itself !
'Well that is most peculiar' i quizzed her. 'I was in there the other day , and it wasn't peeling off then'. How could it have possibly peeled off in just one day? 'Its damp' she told me. 'Yes I know it is' I replied..' I could see a few dark marks showing on the paper'. I'm waiting to see how bad it is before i have to replace that area or have the wall tanked or re plastered or damp proofed.. ' Its not just marks'...she kept on... 'its peeled off !' I went into the drawing room to investigate only to find 2 whole strips of paper had been peeled off up to about waist height !! 'How the hell did that happen' !! i was fuming..... 'I told you...its damp'...she said again. 'Well i cant understand why it was OK yesterday...but today its 3ft off the wall !!' i replied..... As she left the room..I heard some muttering from her ...... 'well I may have helped it a little'..... SO now i have 2 flappy lengths of very expensive wallpaper hanging off my walls!!!
We cooked our tea on the bonfire yesterday......
We cut loads of overgrown Rhododendrons down several weeks ago, left them to dry off and this weekend we had a big bonfire to burn it all away. We lit the bonfire on Saturday morning, Sunday the embers were still red hot. So we added more tree debris and re started the fire.. Monday the embers were still glowing, so we wrapped large potatoes in foil and buried them in the base of the fire pit. Went for a walk down the valley and left them roasting for several hours..OH wow! they tasted delicious when we had them for out tea at 5 o'clock yesterday!!
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