Wednesday 22 June 2011

Digging For Victory

Today dawned cold and wet.  Even before it dawned there was thunder and lightning, but by 8.30 am there was just pouring rain.  And cold.

I decided against painting the shutters and went off to the garden centre near L'Isle Jourdain to get some plants to perk up the garden a bit.  At least after the rain the soil would be workable.

I bought a car load...

boot of car

...and they are lovely!

I thought I would put them in the patch that Pete cleared on Monday...

cleared ground

..it gets some shade from the buildings, but also sun.  First I watered all the plants thoroughly by plunging them into a bucket of water, and then it was time to fork over the soil.  Not such a simple job!  Two hours and nearly 3 barrow loads of rubbish later and I am still not half-way across the patch.

Tiles, stones and weeds

This is my third barrowload!

I also uncovered / dug up some big flat stones that were obviously part of a path.  I had found others from this path before and I'm pretty sure it led from the end room of the house to the outside toilet, which was the only one available.  I like to think of it as the Thunder Path.  When I bought the house it had a concrete slope at the back and the little door from the end room opened onto this.  I think that you would have gone out of that door, across the concrete under the barbecue shelter and across the little area I am digging, to the loo!

I used the outside loo for a year before I had proper sanitation.  Here it is in its  cosy little 'shed' (before I moved in to the house)....

toilet distant

Anyway, I digress...

Did I mention it was really cold this morning?  Well, of course, as soon as I started digging, the sun came out and it was BAKING HOT!  I'm taking a break right now, writing this, and I'm going to go back to the digging this evening when it's a little cooler.

Seeing as how this hamlet was actually the farm barns for the Knights Templar, who had their quarters in a little village called Champeau, just a stone's throw from here, I thought I might uncover at least one interesting artefact.  What I did discover is an awful lot of bindweed, mixed in with a considerable amount of nettle roots.  It made me think - I've never seen bindweed on the Time Team...



...why is that?  It certainly slows things down, trying to pick it all out, and I wouldn't like to think how long it would take with a teeny Time Team trowel...

4 comments:

Marigold Jam said...

Best of luck - looks like jolly hard work but at least you will be able to appreciate the flowers when you sit on the loo!!! Is it still usable?

French Nanny said...

No - the mechanism finally broke (it was like an aircraft loo) and my son helped me to take it out.

Helen said...

What a great blog and what a lovely project you have on your hands! Renovation work is so hard and I know (very well) that sometimes it seems never ending. Worth it in the end though - even all that gloss painting!

Best wishes and thanks for following me! Helen

Joy said...

I would actually like an outside 'loo'--we call it an outhouse. I know my husband won't put one in, but if I lived in the country and lots of guests showed, it would come in handy! I see you have lavender in the car boot (we call it the 'trunk'). You are certainly determined to make a proper flower bed---will you be adding some fertilizer or compost to the soil?