This retaining wall project has sort of been an on and off sort of project for the last year and a bit... I've been digging out the earth by hand, and moving little barrow loads when I have had free time... and ages ago, my mother in law suggested that we should hire an excavator and ask one of the family to drive it and do it with the machine. I dawdled on it for so long... partly due to my awkwardness in asking the more practical members of the family to do stuff for us... and also as we were still settling into a financial rhythm, and being freelancers, we didn't know what sort of things were coming down the road in terms of income and expenses... and taxes.

In the end, we have managed to save up a financial buffer and that means that we can move ahead with some of the small earthworks that we want to get done. And this is the first one off the ranks... we actually ended up hiring a guy from Gumtree to come and do it, and he was really nice and friendly, and he operated his excavator while we carted the wheelbarrows to and from the loading to the dumping site!

We had a little bit of an early snag though... the excavator threw a track, but after about half an hour of crowbarring and some nice tricks with ropes... the operator was able to get it back on and we were off and moving earth again!

In the end, this was the volume of earth moved! Quite a lot more than I would have thought! It took about 4 hours form start to finish... but it was all done, and we can use this earth to level a different section.

So, next up... we will remove these posts and timber retainers... and rebuild with concrete/brick. A small wall at the front, and then another similar sized one at the back. That will then form the section for our wicker beds, for veggies and berries. The back area will then be able to take small fruit trees. Slowly, slowly, we are starting to shape and tame our garden!

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