Brickwork facing the hill now entirely stripped out, down to a handy foundation layer maybe an inch below the level of the paving slabs. All bagged up and ready to go although I think I shall wait until the coming week, rather than attempting the waste transfer station on a bank holiday. After all, we did have a bad case of tip rage a year or so ago. The short remaining stretch of brickwork, the return facing south, in the shadow across the top left of the snap left, can wait until the urge to concrete rises again.
Then, thinking that the ground would be quite soft after all the rain we have had over the past few months, I was surprised to find the ground in this corner quite dry and I had to resort to using the edge of the spade to break it up, although it softened by the time I had got down to the yellow clay sub-soil. Odd stuff, containing a variety of stones & flints which can do a good job at blocking the thrust of a spade. I guess the answer to the dryness must lie in the nearby leylandii, just visible top left.
Finally deployed the second shutter, not yet having finally struck the first shutter from the second pour.
During preparation last week I had cut half a dozen wedges, thinking they might come in useful at some point. Which they did at this point, deploying three of them, two of which can be seen under the bottom left hand edge of the shutter and with the third peeping out behind the cloth.
And lastly, a bit of nostalgia in the form of the distinctive sound of wet concrete falling down against a wooden shutter as I poured; there is nothing else quite like it. As distinctive in its way as the related sound of a large amount of small lego being stirred in its box.
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