Day seven - A week for the weak

A week has passed, but luckily the weak hasn’t 

It had rained overnight which hampered the start of today’s efforts.

The exposed cut, having got wet, showed that the bank was collapsing. I couldn’t walk around in the confined space without making matters worse.

Mrs Snippets had gone out with her daughter Helen  for a couple of hours.

The weather forecast was predicting rain up till about 14:00 then warm and sunny thereafter.

I hoped that the area would dry out a bit by then, making the work a little easier.

I took the opportunity to repair a garden fork, the wooden handle of which had broken. I had ordered a replacement which arrived yesterday.

I drove out the rivet which attached the broken shaft to the fork head, then drilled out the broken shaft. I had spare rivets but they were a little larger than the original and so I drilled out the steel for a perfect fit. I measured the depth that the shaft had to be inserted into the head and sanded a taper for another perfect fit. Laying the head and the handle  on the bench ensuring both parts were in the same plane, I then joined the two together, tapped the handle home. I then inserted the rivet, which I had to cut shorter and peened over the head.

Finding decent tool handles is becoming harder. Most offered for sale nowadays come from China, the woods used are hardwood and not suitable, but luckily I found a UK source.

Next I Fetched the sand from nearby Zigzag Quarry. Cheaper than all the other local supplier’s, which was nice.

I laid a 50mm layer of sand in the bottom of the prepared hole then tamped it down and checking for level.

I still couldn’t walk around the pond without collapsing the bank further.

It wasn’t easy to stretch to see the level bubble either.

The pond liner itself would warp and twist making it difficult to maintain level. I anchored one side with large pebbles and slowly filled the pond with water, checking that it remained level in both directions and proceeded to gently back fill.

All seemed to go well until it was almost full, then shallow end overflowed on the bank side, the opposite side nearest house was now 35mm too high. The liner had twisted, despite my best efforts, due to the weight of water (250lbs+)

By now it was 15:00 and I was whacked, so I’ll try again tomorrow.

I will have to drain it and try to undermine the high side to bring it back to level.

But for now, a little down but not out.

BEER!