The weekend in review.

In time honoured tradition, the weekend was spent working like navvies (I do so hope that "navvy" is not some racist epithet, but I am too lazy to look it up). We do this every weekend in the hope that one day, it will all be done & we can relax & enjoy it. Alternatively, realising that "it" will never "all be done", the Plan B is to become stinking rich. Like these fine people plan to. And pay real navvies.

So anyway, after mental preparation (Mrs Llew walked the dog, then we both had a leisurely breakfast & read the paper...), it was full on. Tatiana (Mrs Llew's real name) heat gunned the front veranda, while I went down to Placemakers to get mortar, cement, and sandpaper.

I know it's obvious, but I was still disappointed to find that the 40kg bags of mortar really do weigh just as much as the 40kg bags of cement. I had 6 of them to shift from the car to the back garden.

After lunch, Tatiana commenced sanding the singed porch. And she sanded for the rest of the afternoon, until, get this, she wore the orbital sander out! Way to go T! Fortunately though, I took it down to my subterranean super-heroes' secret sanctum* (we all have them you know), and fixed it with super hero gizmo technology (gorilla glue).

While sanding was going on, I was out the back building a brick retaining wall around part of the garden. Something we've talked about for years. I got the cement base in by about 6pm, when it was time to do the evening dog walk.

We've had "blockheads" in recently. Yes, that's what the "chippies" call them! Blocklayers might be their preferred label. We watched them at work for a while. So precise, so economical with the mortar. So damned fast! I can quite confidently say that I think had one of these "blockheads" been on the job, my retaining wall would have been finished in 15 minutes.

But anyway, the next day, while I was doing the walk thing, Tatiana finished sanding the porch. I spent the rest of the day building my wall. And credit where it is due, Tatiana spent much of her day cleaning and scrubbing over 100 recycled bricks (we have many, left over from a chimney that was once demolished), while I mixed mortar, and painstakingly assembled the edifice. I probably used 5 or 6 times as much mortar as the pros, and there was only a token nod to making it level. But I have to say it looks grand. 3 bricks in height, and 26 bricks long. The next step is to make a nice little path beside it. Which may also involve recycled bricks, but not as many.

This morning, I descended to the backyard to retrieve Wilma's bone for her to gnaw on during the day. I paused, and regarded my creation with satisfaction and pride. My beloved appeared at the back door.

"Anatoly (my real name), what are you doing?"

"I'm regarding my creation, my beloved." I replied.

"Anatoly, is it always about you? Have you regarded my porch?"

Bewildered, because let's face it, it IS always about me, I stammered, "What porch?"

*You may have heard of me as "Mr Sweat". Or not.