… I cracked on with this wall today, and it’s finished too!

What got me going was that in the part of the stone wall that I hadn’t touched, there were all kinds of things growing in it, including two huge thistles, and so I needed to demolish part of the wall to uncover the roots.

The wall there wasn’t much good and it didn’t take long, and by the time that I’d done that, I had a huge pile of stones. Digging out a track to replace the stones, I found that there was a long line of stones, right up to the boundary of the plot, down underneath the soil. There’s been a wall here before.

That was the cue to dig out the track properly and to clean it out, and then I dashed off for my surveyor’s line and a pile of large stones from my collection.

There was one that made a beautiful corner piece and it was really heavy so with a large crowbar I levered it into position and there we were, on our way.

Building stone walls is not as easy as you might think – it’s a bit like a three-dimensional jigsaw and you need lots of patience, and so I’m surprised that I managed to get as far as I did.

But it’s here in all its glory, all assembled and pointed, and it makes a world of difference to the place.

It needs to be built up from the reverse side but that can wait for a bit.

I always know when I’ve done something that I’ve enjoyed and that has pleased me, because I have a tendency to sit and look at it for ages. and I certainly did that with this wall, that’s for sure.

With what was left of my working day, I attacked the upstairs in the lean-to. I found a big box and all the dry mortar that I scraped out of the wall when I pointed it, that went in the box and now it’s quite clean and tidy up there;

Tomorrow I may well make a start on making the shelves and cupboards that will be going there.

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