The Shed

For my birthday I was given a shed! This week-end Paul and I built it. We took it down to the allotment on Saturday morning at 10.15am, a builders merchant was waiting for us with concrete floor tiles, but he didn't have the sand we had ordered. I found a wheelbarrow and took the flagstones around to the plot while Paul stayed with all the other equipment and waited for the sand to arrive. It was a beautiful sunny day and quite warm, it seemed eerily quiet with out the normal air traffic, I've noticed the lack of planes much more than they ever used to bother me. By the time we had carried the shed to the plot we were already exhausted. Our luck meant that it was a match day at Craven Cottage, this means you're only allowed to park for one hour, so Paul had to take the car back home and return on his bike. Meanwhile I began sorting the parts (all numbered) and building the shed, the frame was aluminium and bolted together, the instructions were chinese and didn't. Paul soon came back to help me, like a huge Meccano set but not quite as precise it was a bit of struggle to sort things out, the diagrams were so vague we couldn't tell which way around things went and some steps and important details seemed superfluous. Before we got to the wall panels Paul started to level the base that we would build it on, adding the walls was a two man job and took a very long time, quite a few of the holes didn't line up and being metal it was difficult to add new ones. At about four we had built all the walls and gables and put in the roof beam, we did think about just adding the doors and coming back the next day to do the roof, we had been outside all day without even a drink, I was glad I'd put sunscreen on but I could still feel myself burning. Once the doors were on we decided that we should get the roof on and it would all be done, I think the thought of having to spend a whole extra day on it spurred us on. We left the plot at about 6.30, I had to walk home which was a long two miles after all that work. So it took two of us just over eight hours to build the shed.
Today we went back down to the plot, Paul finished off the floor inside the shed, and then we moved the tool box to sit in front of the shed, I'll keep this to store other things in, it also makes a good seat! The plot itself has been somewhat ignored, I did go around and water some things this afternoon, I know 3pm isn't the best time but I guessed it was better than not at all. The potatoes are coming on well but there's no sign yet of the perpetual spinach, carrots or parsnips - I'd have thought they might have germinated by now. Lots of weeds have sprung up and the soil was so hard after a dry week that it was quite difficult to pull them out with their roots.