20th Aug - Monday Morning Blues, Monday Evening Happiness

First day back at work after a wonderful two weeks away in the land of sun, wine, cidre and cheese. It wasn't too bad. I had decided that I would keep my allotment quiet but within 10 minutes of sipping my first coffee (at work that is, as I'd already had two espressos at home) I had blurted out my weekend antics! The majority of feedback was very positive with good for you and well done from lovely Wendy and how old are you from Andy!

I was eager to rid myself of the whiff of Avgas and other aviation grimy dirt and smells and get home to my allotment. There are many great things about my job and it turns out that one of the "perks" (this is really sad) is that when I order barrels of oil, they're delivered on pallets! A pallet is a pallet is a pallet until 4 get turned into a compost heap. I kid you not. I was really excited to load 4 manky pallets; firstly into my car, didn't fit. Secondly thrown onto the open bed work truck...wasn't happy that my new prizes wouldn't somehow jump off in transit and escape. Third attempt the work's Berlingo van. Job done, thanks to my fabulous, long suffering work colleagues for putting up with me and putting their backs out!

I got home, was greeted by Charlie and Dexter who were expected cuddles and cat food and just got cat food...no time bears, sorry! Si was busy in the garage on his bike (yawn, only kidding) so I unloaded the pallets all by myself and neatly stacked them up ready to be built when Si had the tools and time.

Half hour later, Si asked why I'd unloaded them and didn't take them straight to site, as that was where it would be built? Well how was I supposed to know that? Lesson 1 of the day: better communication skills with my workforce!

So the bloody pallets got loaded back into the van and with a cordless drill and bag of screws, off we set for my plot (I'll have to give it a name, feel free to make suggestions).

Onsite, we unloaded and carried the 4 wooden wonders to their new home and Si set about building my compost heap. Now it turns out oil drum pallets are a lot bigger than your average pallet, well you have to compare what you have with your neighbours, don't you? I'd only just had cleared enough ground the day before to house this monster. Lesson 2 of the day: No matter what you are planning on doing on site, ALWAYS make sure you have basic tools with you! Let's face it, we were building something so why would I think it necessary to take a spade and fork with me. It didn't occur to me that I would need to level the ground or dig a trench. Thank goodness I had my trusty walking boots on so I could kick and scrape the ground into submission!

In no time at all, my lovely husband, who wanted nothing to do with my project unless it was to help me build stuff (once an engineer, always and engineer), had built me a massive compost heap. We stuffed my full Travis Perkins rubble sack of weeds from yesterday into it and it simply disappeared. So we left site for the promised Chinese takeaway...OK, OK that's how I lured Si into an evening of labour...well I have to have some power over him :)