The Path Is Done

Today, I finally finished the path (previous episode) after weeks of procrastination and pontification. Actually, I couldn't finish the path until I'd started the walls, and that's where the procrastination and pontification came in. As an IT Help Desk-er, I knew I'd make a seriously bad brickie. So I put it off and put it off and put it off. In the end, I decided I had to do it at some time, so it might as well be right then.

I was wrong. I am not a "seriously bad brickie". I am an Horrifically bad brickie. The first wall arcs through 90 degrees over a couple of metres, straightens for a metre, and goes off at a right-angle for a metre or so, enclosing what will become a garden bed. One layer of bricks below ground level, three layers (oops, sorry) courses above ground. And... but the rest can be for another day. This is supposed to be about the path.



The path goes for about 5 metres, in a very loose S-shape. At first, the beloved wanted it to be at ground-level, and then she wanted it to be above ground-level. But only half-a-brick. And she knew how to do it. And she told me. And I, in typical tradition, ignored her.

I started by laying out the dozens (hundreds?) of bricks all the way along the path's length, so I'd know exactly what I thought needed to be done. Then I'd take up a section, dig out some earth, put down sand, level it off, and put the bricks back. Onto the next section. And so on. A path, albeit with wonky edges.

How to de-wonk it? I had plenty of cement and sand for the walls, so I used some of that, and laid down a ribbon of concrete along each edge of the path and set the edge bricks into the concrete. Smoothed off the concrete, and the wonky edges were gone. Went to the hardware (DIY) store, got some pre-mixed cement and sand, and put that between all the bricks. Light spray of water, and that was that. There's the beloved's path.

EXCEPT that, I hadn't thought it all through properly, and now the edge bricks are slightly higher than the middle bricks, so any rain does not flow off the path, but into the middle of the path.

Hmm, I wonder how long it will be before the beloved notices?