Limousin Living
Life in the heart of France
2nd March 2015
Drive Change
Page 990
This time, we are not Do-It-Yourselfing, we've got in a man with a van (and a digger and a cement mixer of his own). We organised the materials to be ordered and delivered, but we're saving our backs and knees and doing no more than make cups of tea and sign the cheque. We measured and marked out the line of the edging we wanted, using orange spray paint. On Monday, Alan started by digging up the stone parking circle, then dug a narrow channel along the marked line.
He's graded the sides of the lawn near the gateway, generating large amounts of mud, turf and hardcore. This was carted away by our friendly local retired farmer, Julien, in his tractor bucket. It always has to look worse before it gets better. He then made a footing all along the channels, as a base for the blocks - 10cm square setts in a pretty pinkish colour, which are cemented on edge to make the border.
Alan's also scraped away a little of the grey stuff - I can't call it gravel, it's rougher than that - from the area in front of the house and garage, so that when we add a layer of proper gravel it will end up the same height.
He can't do the lowest area of the drive yet - it's still waterlogged after plentiful recent rain. Hopefully it'll dry out for next week.
Fortunately the rain stops, the sun shines and the job progresses. Lovely weather, for early March.