Walk of Shame Revisited

Waaaay back in the midsts of time (June 2012), I wrote a post about the alley at the side of our garage which, at the beginning of that post looked like this

And by the end of the post, looked something like this

Definitely a little tidier, but still a mess when all's said and done.

Fast forward a couple of months and DC's wendy house was popped in the space next to the tree (as seen at the far right back of the photo above.)

And then our next door neighbours started having work done on an extension. It all worked in our favour really (in the end at least) because they needed access to the back of their house, which was most easily achieved by coming through the Walk of Shame (although they have a detached house the other side of it has a garage built all the way across their plot of land which would have meant the builders using wheelbarrows to move tonnes of earth dug out for the footings, etc; by using our side alley instead they were able to get diggers/dumpers in and out which saved lots of time and money.) In return, the builders used their digger to rip out all of the shrubs, weeds, etc that had been preventing the Walk of Shame becoming a Garden of Eden. Ha.

And one little boy was in digger heaven!

(Yes, that it Father Christmas on his t-shirt; it's his absolute favourite and is worn year-round.)

But let's go back in time just a tad because before the digger could start to clear the shrubs and before the diggers and dumper trucks could get down the side of the garage and into our neighbours' garden, all of the stones, the coal bunker, and various other bits of detritus had to be moved (luckily, the builders moved it all.) But where to put it? Ta dah: the space at the back of the garage, which was a bit of an odd area with a couple of little walls (can you see them in the middle and towards the back of the photo?) which served no apparent purpose (here's hoping the garage wasn't being propped up by them...) and some plants. 

Although before that could be done, more digging and clearing had to take place, so hubby and his little helper set to and did a marvellous job of clearing this bed. Most of the plants were rehomed elsewhere in the garden.

Once the stones, etc were moved this is what the spot looked like.

Nice, eh?

Over the next couple of months diggers, dumpers, builders, bricks, concrete blocks, hardcore, you name it was shifted down the side alley, through torrential rain, snow, more rain, churning up the grass and leaving behind a LOT of mud.

But then finally, a couple of weeks ago the building work was done and we were able to start work on the side alley. First a new fence and gate were erected (by the builders), then hubby (with a little help from DC & I) wheeled barrow loads of gravel round, then hubby moved all of the stones/spare paving slabs and roof tiles, and the coal bunker back. Phew.

There's a lot of fun to be had with a green bucket.

Leaving us with a side alley that now looks like this (not quite finished as we have to wait for our neighbours to do something with a hole under their fence panel, hence the spare fence panel still in our side alley and the gravel ending halfway up the path)

and the back of the garage looking like this. Please excuse the butt-ugly water butt and the trellis to nowhere as we're still debating what to do with this area of the garden; plans include (but are not limited to, depending on what day of the week it is) re-siting the greenhouse, knocking down and rebuilding the garage, not knocking down and rebuilding the garage, extending the patio along to this part of the garden, putting DC's soon-to-be-erected trampoline here, etc, etc.

Finally it's not quite so shameful. But still a work in progress.