ArmyAirForce

Thankfully, the car owner's insurance covered a builder to do the wall, saving me a lot of effort.

April 20th & 21st The clear Friday night developed into a clear, calm and dry weekend, so it was time to get back to the wall. I've built walls before at the Washington house. Made from modern metric bricks, they turned out so neat, that some people thought the pictures were CGI of what I planned to build. This wall isn't like that at all. The bricks are Victorian, dating from around 1860, appear hand made. Some are huge, around four and a half to five inches wide in places and none are exactly the same size, nor have flat faces. Some are bulged, some are con-caved, the ends aren't necessarily square and the proportions aren't right for the length of one brick, to work with the width of two bricks for the pillar. All of this is made laying them a real challenge. Straight and level needs to be an average, as a small level won't sit flat on any of the bricks! Several bricks broke or crumbled during dismantling of the wall, so multiple half bricks were used on the far side, below ground level. They are all being reused from the original wall, so all are stained from age or lime mortar. I may try cleaning them once the wall is finished. By the end of Saturday, I had four courses added on the front and two on the back. My back really didn't want me to go back out on Sunday, but I couldn't waste another good weather day. Another two courses were added to the front, with four at the back, though every fourth layer has the bricks laid across the wall, to tie the two sides together. It was all covered in plastic by the end of the day, as the rain came back that evening and has continued on and off to today. Lynne also gave the lawn its first cut of the year. It was still a bit wet, but had got so long, it took her two hours. I'm hoping a rotary wire brush or grinder can clean off the bricks a bit. A quick test seemed to suggest that would work, but they've got 150 years of weathering to catch up on to match the rest of the wall - which also needs pointing. Yet another job! It was nice to get back out in both the garden and observatory.

Here's a six pane mosaic of the Moon, shot at 1 metre focal length on the 200PDS with the 742nm IR filter and ASI178MM camera. I'd also had the observatory open earlier in the day to grab a quick white light Sun. After the mosaic, I tried the x3 televue barlow, as the seeing appeared to be fairly good. I did some close ups with the x3, before switching to the TAL x2 as seeing started to deteriorate. x2

April 19th The 19th was productive in the garden and in the observatory. A clear day also resulted in a clear night! Funny how life is circular. When the old Victorian school was knocked down in 1969, to make way for our house, the site was around one acre, with the bungalow only taking up a small part of that plot. The rest of the land was used as a plant nursery. Here we are in 2024, with plant production now going into industrial levels to fill the garden. We've multiple seed trays on the go, which have started to come to life in the last week. Having already spent around £200 on plants for the railway and path, I'm now looking for a cheaper source to fill in gaps. The postman also brought another box of twelve Purple Rock Cress plants. Right now, they are tiny, but they will go along the edge of the railway to complete a solid line of these plants as a barrier between the ballast and embankment. With night time frosts still possible, I've potted them for now, until we can be sure the frosts are behind us. Lynne was fretting a couple of nights ago, that we might loose £200 of plants to a late frost! In the picture below, I've got three pots of Forget-me-nots, pulled from the lawn and the grass separated from them. To their right, in the Flash box, are three pots of wildflower seeds. I think the seeds are tiny, so the box has a white powder mixed in to help to show where they've been spread. With it being still cold outside, I planted some in pots, kept indoors, to see if anything would emerge from the powder mix! The remaining two pictures are Candy Tuft seedlings, which were big enough to separate from the seed trays and plant in their own pots. The Slushy pots, complete with lids, make quite nice mini greenhouses which also helps to keep the moisture in. The open top still allows fresh CO2 in, for the leaves to breathe. I'm interested to know if those with lids grow faster or slower than the others.

We are still looking for some more Purple Rock Cress, to make a more solid boundary between the plants and the ballast. Other than that, for now, the planting is done and we need to wait and let everything grow and spread. Next year, we can take another look and see if anything died and whether there are still spaces that could do with filling. There's one chair screw left to fit on the rear sleeper - the "Golden Spike" to complete the railway. I need to drill the sleeper for this, then the family will all take turns on the two feet stilson wrench, to complete the railway! I'm looking forwards to the Summer, leaning on my crossing gate, with a cold drink in my hand, watching the buzzy things going mental around all the flowers!!

It took a little rethinking of where some of the plants would go, because the replacements were the wrong colour or would spread further or not as far as planned. Obviously they need to grow and fill out the area properly, so it still looks a bit thin for now. The pictures below show the completed embankment, one with all the plants identified. All around the back of the planted area, we sowed wildflower seeds, to form a backdrop to the rest. We also bought five more spreading plants, to continue the plants along the hawthorn hedge, up to the garage. That's thirty four along seventy feet of hedge.

April 13th On the 13th, we had another push on the railway embankment. After dropping my daughter off to see some friends, Lynne and I continued to a garden centre and splashed out on more plants, compost and some small garden tools. By the time we got back home, it was lunch time, but after a quick bite to eat, we were out working at the railway. The first job was to dig more sand and compost into the embankment, to break up the clay soil. With that done, the exciting bit, planting. We couldn't get all the plants I'd picked out two weeks ago, so had to get some alternatives, but it all worked out.

For those who are green fingered, here's what we have planted so far. It's so close to being finished in this area. I'm looking forwards to seeing the rest planted, though it is going to look a little thin for a while until the plants get established and spread out.

In early April, I spent a day weeding the small border along the hawthorn hedge - 70 feet out of 100 feet. I've left the bit behind the garage for now. I then dug in a load of sand to help break up the clay soil and help drainage. A week ago, Lynne and I went to a few local garden centres and came away with £120 worth of plants. These were planted a couple of days ago and calculating for their future spread, they only did 60 feet of the border! I've got some other stuff that I'm growing from seeds, but wanted something down that would eventually help to control the weeds which spread from the other side of the hedge. We also made a start on planting the railway embankment. Up by the kitchen, there's an area where we are going to enlarge the patio. It's a bit small with a few people, chairs and a table out. So from the area that is going to be buried, we've dug out several plants which have moved to the railway. These include "Lady's Mantle", "Purple Rock Cress" and "Water Avens". I also dug out some "Forget-me-not" from the edge of the lawn. We still need to shop for more plants, but I also have some wildflower seeds that I will spread around the back edge of the embankment.

It's been a while since I updated this thread. While the current updates aren't related to the observatory, I want to finish the story of the garden rework, which is almost complete. I left the story with news that was garden wall was rebuilt. That was as a result of a BMW that buried itself in my front garden wall and snapped the telegraph pole in December. Here's some pictures of the fun! I haven't done a great deal of astronomy over the winter. The weather has been very poor over the Winter and even now, well into Spring, it has been chucking it down or blowing a gale. Add to that exhaustion from all the garden work and I haven't had the motivation on the odd night where it was clear. Another Winter project, built inside in my workshop thankfully, is this Anti-butterfly air defence system. When we put the veggie planters in, the neighbours warned us about slugs. Nobody mentioned butterflies laying eggs and the hungry caterpillars! This frame has a 5mm mesh, which I'm told is too small for the butterflies. The 7mm netting we had over the planter last year didn't stop them.

Almost three months after the car crash, the front wall is rebuilt. The builders finished today, but were only working a week. We were waiting for the telegraph pole to be replaced, then the insurance to sort everything, the availability of the builders and then a delay due to a surprise early paternity leave for the brick layer! No big deal for us, as the garden hedge is behind the wall, which meant we couldn't see the damage from inside the house. My own back garden brick laying is still waiting for the rain and gales to stop and the weather to warm up a bit. I'm currently decorating the hallway, where it is warmer and dryer, but sanding all the woodwork seems much harder than all the outdoor stuff I did last year! I did manage to get out to the observatory on Saturday morning and was rewarded with some good seeing to catch the giant sun spot currently solar stage centre.

The builder that came to do the quote said it would be at least next year before they could do anything, but regardless, nothing can be done until Openreach dig up and re-install a new telegraph pole. If I do have to rebuild it I will, but I have plenty of other big projects that I'd rather be putting my energy into. Openreach are supposed to be coming out on the 19th, but whether that's to replace the pole or stand around looking at it and head scratching some more, is still unknown.

Yes, they plan to, but I also have considerable experience of tradesmen not turning up to do jobs! Time will tell. A week on, BT/Openreach have only just realised there's a problem, having done a line test on the day and found no faults, so closed the case!!

I might have more wall building to do after this morning. At about 7:15am, I think due to icy roads, someone buried their BMW in our front garden wall, also snapping off the top eight feet of the telegraph pole through whiplash! Phone lines and internet down for us and our neighbours!

What was worse, is that in the best traditions of British Rail, it was the "Wrong type of snow", so all trains were cancelled again! and we'd only just recovered from the leaf tragedy! 😁 So here's my wall today, December 2nd, lost under a plastic sheet, several more blankets and a couple of inches of snow. I did get the fence across the end of the garage done before the frost and with the lawn, railway and path complete, all the main goals for the year were achieved. If it warms up after this snow goes, I'll get back to the wall, but overall, I'm very pleased with year's work.