We’re living on a building site again. In fact, as I write this blog there is an enormous truck delivering metal (that’s road gravel) moving past my window.

After months of waiting the ground works people have returned to finish of the drive and spread the top soil back on the land around the house. It’s typical, it’s also raining too so it will be a case of raking mud and moving it around. Hmm, just think of the mess that the bassets will make in that.

Despite the impending mess it’s an important part of the building and landscaping jigsaw that’s finally coming together. Hopefully the southerly that’s going to blow through today (that will bring the temperatures down by at least 5 degrees) will dry things out and we can prepare for tree planting next week.

It’s been a long time since Fortnum and Mason have seen a digger so they spent a fair amount of time last night barking at the stationery machinery parked by the barn. They weren’t at least as worried as my neighbours girlfriend who thought we were putting up more buildings.

In the couple of hours work they’ve done the area behind the barn has been flattened to the same level and created a much more useable area. Keeping the bassets off the newly turned soil is going to be a battle I’m just not going to try and win. I’ll just have to get reaquainted with my trusty mop and bucket every day to wipe their muddy paw marks away.