So on Monday Older daughter and QT1 carried on with the task of breaking up the shed and an old broken fence panel also revealed behind the shed.  They found the camping mallet (heavy rubber on wood handle) and again enjoyed jumping up and down on the planks to break them, I am told.   There was a slight hitch when QT2 went out to college,  not realising they were in the garden, and put the burglar alarm on so that it went off when they came back in the patio doors!  But apart from that I think they had a good workout and fun at the same time.

So now the garden looks like a building site.  The middle of the “lawn” (astroturf put in by us,  not properly but just laid by us on the grass for the kids to play and practice sport on many years ago and now starting to resemble a lawn again where the grass and weeds have all grown through) has a wood pile which would not disgrace a Guy Fawkes bonfire covered in a huge pile of branches and pieces of hedge and tree cut down by my brother and his stepson around 4 years ago in August and placed by my brother to form a hedge/barrier at the back but which has died and collapsed and no longer served its purpose.

On Monday night myself and Older daughter spent some time breaking up the wood and fitting it into 3 of our recycling sacks.  But the garden rubbish has to be separated from the shed remains because they are two different types of recycling.

Yesterday I got home from work around 6 and we took four bags of wood to the tip along with the broken up roof felt (unrecyclable).  As the tip shuts at 7 that was all we could do.  The tip is shut Thursday and Friday so that’s it now until the weekend.

Later in the evening,  having done a virtuous 45 minutes at the gym (!) I worked until it got dark (9.45 ish?) separating the garden rubbish off and putting three bags worth into the green waste recycling wheelie bin (one of the best £15 I ever spent).  That will be collected for free by the local council.

In fact I got such a good sweat on doing the manual labour that I really don’t know why I bother paying the money to go to the gym!

I also pulling off the branches from the back and piling them up,  those will need to be broken up, put into the recycling bags and taken to the tip with the rest of the shed,  I reckon at least 3-4 trips worth. Good job I still have a people carrier with a substantial boot!  And that the tip is only about 10-15 minutes away from home.

Even when the rubbish is all cleared a massive task awaits.  We have to shovel all of that natural compost heap to somewhere else/over the garden.  We need to completely clear the area and the slabs.  We need to get someone to relay the slabs.  We need to completely clear the rear of the garden and fix the rest of the chicken wire back up.  So I know how my weekends are going to pan out for the rest of the summer!

But having started the job it just has to be finished.  And manual labour is really therapeutic especially after a stressful day at work and I love the feeling afterwards, showered and satisfied that something has been achieved.