Grand Designs

Work has started on our project to build an 'outside space' for the hut.

The plan is as follows: Use the pile of bricks Davina has on her drive & the left over kitchen doors she has in her shed, get a bag of cement, a shovel and a hammer and enlist the services of Phiri and a young guy called Stanley. Feed them up with big lunches of boiled eggs and rice and ask them to de-boulder an area of the garden, flattening it out into two separate tiers.

On the bottom tier ask Stanley to assemble a table and bench seats with the bricks and the wood, cemented to the ground so people can't pinch them. On the top tier build a kind of BBQ thing and then track down the grates / shelves for coals that apparently come in a standard size.
Reinforce the sides of the tiers with the boulders that have been heaved out of the ground, cementing them in as well so we don't have a mud slide come the rainy season.

All is going to plan. Delayed start due to Stanley having a bout of malaria (!) but we've now got two distinct tiers, and a 1.8m x 2m area laid out in bricks on the bottom tier. The kitchen doors are having the handles removed and being cut to size / stuck together to make benches. We have purchased a parafin lamp so we can sit out in the evenings and I am reliably informed that the Petroda garage on the Chileka road is the last remaining petrol station that has paraffin – MK165 a litre (about 63p, think I'll stock up!)

Yay!
Fx

PS – Today also a v g day because I'd asked Phiri to clear the back garden bit so its all nice for Mum & Jennie coming. I don't go round there because I can see there are loads of massive spiders in the cactus type stuff that hangs over the wall. After clearing Phiri set fire to all the weeds under the cactus plant, which will apparently send the spiders packing! Hurray!