19th August 2021, Terrace is completed…
Finally the Terrace is complete. A major milestone in the history of the “Haven”. This is pretty much 11 months into taking on the allotment, and just over 10 months since we put the first spades into the ground.
The terrace is far from how we want it to look, but we are proud that from a flat bit of ground we now have created a working allotment, and a space to sit and enjoy the “Haven” and effectively a destination from which we can observe, plan, socialise, and rest.
Time will tell how robust the whole structure is, and whether it can resist the various seasons that the weather inevitably throws at us, but Desi will be coating the wood with protective layers annually (and tomorrow) to ensure that what we have created serves us for a long time to come.
The red bricks are now all installed and, to be honest, with minor discrepancies, the whole project has turned out just how we would have liked.
Of course it is a little empty right now, so the next actions are to create a table and find some chairs from somewhere so that we can actually use the terrace as it was intended. There is no rest for the wicked!
The final picture shows that we have a water pipe in the wrong place. We are going to seek to move this one. The pipes have been planned, so we just need to ensure that these things are addressed the far side of winter.
As for now we have enough time left this year to put the terrace to early use. Maybe it will be able to serve us until the end of October after which we’ll probably shut up shop until the spring of 2022. There is enough work to keep us going for sure, and the Xmas festivities and New Year celebrations too. Although it is embarrassingly early to talk about those now.
