Day 1: Tuesday 2018 04 03
09:50 Truck arrives, with Patrick the foreman and
about five team members.
I take Patrick down the garden to survey what must be
done - they are going to start at the bottom of the garden. Gail and I think that the team will want to
access the area from the neighbours' garden, but Patrick says they prefer to go
via our garden. (I wonder if it has
anything to do with the neighbours' vicious dogs, which are in their front
garden in plain sight, after Louis the neighbour struggled to get them to go
there. Ours are shut in our kitchen.)
The team gets stuck into removing the existing wooden fence.
Their main tool is a shovel, which one of them uses as a lever next to each upright.
The team gets stuck into removing the existing wooden fence.
Their main tool is a shovel, which one of them uses as a lever next to each upright.
Gail salvages the planks that she and Vine (our gardener) have nailed onto the fence over the past months. One of the planks hits a team member (with a beard) on the shin. Gail is horrified, but he refuses her offer of an ice pack. He keeps standing on my begonias, and I keep asking him to mind where he steps. I hear Patrick and others telling him in SePedi to mind the "blomme" (I wonder what the real SePedi word should be). Eventually another team member (he of the red overalls and the sunhat - I later find out that he is Oliver) constructs a neat little fence around my "blomme".
The team saws off all the tree branches that would be in the way of the wall. I ask them if they are going to take all the garden refuse away, and they say yes. (Whew!)
Gail and I are in the kitchen with the dogs, when we
see a newcomer saunter down our driveway.
I go out to ask him what he's doing there. He says he is also from the wall company, and
his name is Luan. I take him to Patrick,
and it turns out that he has come for "stump removal". I'm puzzled: Patrick had said that that would
be tomorrow. I also didn't think that
they were going to take out a whole tree.
They confirm that it's actually the grinding of the trunk and roots of
existing trees, and eventually agree that he will do this first thing
tomorrow. Luan asks whether we are
having a wooden fence again, and I tell him we are having a vibracrete one and
then summarise the whole story. He says
we should have shot the neighbours' dogs, and I say I just don't do that. Luan says goodbye and leaves.
10:45 Gail and I go back to what we had been about to
do: we put leashes on the dogs and take them to the back yard. Gemma nearly slips her collar on the
way. I don't believe that she could have
got right out of the collar: once we are in the yard, Gail demonstrates that
she certainly can.
The yard door only closes properly from the outside,
but I close it from the inside with the piece of string that I keep there for
that purpose. While I'm filling the
dogs' water bowls, Cosmo makes a break for it, bursting out of the yard through
the string. Gail yells, I yell; Cosmo is
so confused by what he's managed to do and all the yelling that I'm able to
grab his collar and push him back in.
Gail and I leave them there, bolting the door securely from the
outside. Gail is so frazzled by Cosmo's
narrow shave that she goes to lie down for a few minutes, and then finds the
Rescue Remedy. I make us each a yoghurt
smoothie with lots of banana.
Gail is concerned because she can't find the
combination lock that we usually have on the front gate. I tell her that I put it in the postbox for
safekeeping. (I also made sure that it
wasn't showing its combination. The
things you have to think about!)
11:19 Anna from across the road phones to ask us to
tell Louis that his smallest dog, Melissa the mini bull terrier, has escaped
into the street. Gail phones Louis and
then goes to have a look at how he will prevent Melissa from getting out
again. He is busy putting in completely
inadequate measures.
The bearded one comes to ask to borrow the nail
clippers. Nail clippers?! I fetch them, and he shows me a loose flap of
skin on his finger, which a colleague is going to cut off for him. It is bleeding. (I feel faintly queasy, and wonder if this
man is accident prone.) I ask if he
would like a plaster, and he accepts.
While he is having his "surgery", I fetch a plaster, two
surgical gloves and the Fucidin ointment: when he brings back the clippers, I
give him some ointment on a tissue and the other supplies.
12:15 A gentle, young one comes to ask for the Cokes
we have been keeping cool for them. I
see another team member with a carrier bag full of loaves of bread. Gail fetches the oranges she bought for
them. That's lunch.
As it is getting
hot in the yard, we fetch the dogs inside again. This time Cosmo manages to give us the slip
and almost heads towards the lunch party in the garden, but I chase him and he
miraculously runs up the back steps and into the kitchen. Whew!
Gail brings Gemma sedately on her leash.
By 13:00 the team is going full force again, with
wheelbarrows up and down the drive, taking the uprights to where they have dug
the holes for them.
When the shade has increased in the yard, Gail and I
take Gemma and Cosmo back to the yard.
This time Cosmo trots along meekly, while Gemma has to be persuaded.
Gail takes tea and coffee orders from the team: they
all want coffee, so she serves them coffee and biscuits.
Because the team is only going to add the vibracrete
panels tomorrow, they temporarily attach the old wooden panels to the uprights.
 |
The fence around the "blomme" is in the foreground.
There is a clivia in the middle of the begonias. |
And suddenly they have left for the day, at 16:00.
 |
| The front fence, with the bamboo panels that Gail bought recently to ensure that the dogs can't see each other |
An hour or two after they leave, it rains for a while.
 |
| The "before" photo for tomorrow's section of the wall |
Day 2: Wednesday 2018 04 04
08:55 They're back!
By 09:30, the temporary structures are removed and the
rest of the old wooden fence is down.
and the noisy part begins.
I peep in the window of the stoep-room and see the two
kittens, side by side and wide-eyed. The
dogs bark a few times and then settle (they are in the kitchen with me.)
Louis comes out to watch. (That's him in the green T shirt.)
I observe him through the kitchen window, talking to
Luan. By the way he looks over his
shoulder, I can see that he is talking about us. I half-lipread, half-hear him saying, "Hulle
is grootbek oor …" ("They have big mouths about …"). I give it a moment and go out to join
them. I ask Luan if there is something I
can help him with and he says that all is good.
After muttering a greeting, Louis slopes back into his house. Luan and I exchange a look.
11:30 I realise that the grinding is finished and Luan
has left.
11:50 The same gentle one fetches the Cokes, and lunch
begins. Gail and I take the opportunity
to put Gemma and Cosmo on their leashes and move them to the backyard, after
letting them have a quick sniff at the diggings and the sawdust.
The lunch break seems to have been quite long, but by
13:00 everything is in full swing again.
They carry panel after panel into the back garden, and lower them into
place. For this part of the wall, the
neighbours will have the more attractive side facing them, as we have more
foliage. This will be reversed along our
driveway. The wall is much higher than
the fence was: 2.4m instead of 1.5m.
Louis wanted the extra height (and is paying the difference) - he thinks
it will discourage people from climbing between gardens. We don't think it will make a difference, one
way or the other.
 |
| We did not select this wall for the aesthetics! |
14:30 Gail serves coffee with hot cross buns.
The team discovers a wasps' nest under the eaves of
our garage, right next to where they need to work. They want to use our outdoor flare to smoke
them out, and don't seem concerned that the timber of the garage is about 100
years old and very dry! Gail won't let
them do this, and they are not happy about it.
They change their plan, and Louis finds a tin that he puts on the end of
a broomstick with burning meths in it.
Apparently the wasps fall into the burning meths (I don't stick around
to watch). A team member stands in his
garden with his hose and sprays the side of the garage.
The rest of the team seals the gaps again, this time
along our driveway.
And suddenly they are gone, at 15:20. They have told us that they need to be here
tomorrow AND Friday (whereas the person who quoted told us that the job would
take two days, maybe three).
We repeat the same pattern for the dogs.
Day 3: Thursday 2018 04 05
07:30 Linah arrives to clean the house, and Vine to
work in the garden.
We take the dogs to the backyard.
09:10 The team arrives, this time with a chainsaw to
cut off the side of one of the trees, almost 2 metres up from the ground. I am in the bedroom when the chainsaw noise
starts, together with the vacuum cleaner just outside the bedroom door: the
kittens dash under the bed, and I join them - I'm not sure who is taking care
of whom.
The team digs the holes for the uprights: for some, they have to chop more tree roots out of the way.
One of the uprights is flush against where they used the chainsaw.
The precision with which they
are placed is impressive.
The truck, which was parked outside our house on the
first two days, has gone - leaving the pavement filled with vibracrete panels
and mounds of gravel.
12:10 Lunch seems to be a lot shorter than
yesterday. It is also a noisy day,
because all of the clatter and shouting is right next to the house.
Once enough uprights are in, the team starts lowering
the panels into the slots, and this proceeds steadily for an hour or two.
Gail serves coffee with muffins.
It starts raining, and Gail and I fetch the dogs from
the yard, keeping a tight hold on their leashes as we take them past all the
activity and into the kitchen. The rain
does not last long, but we leave the dogs there.
Gail observes the team dismantling one of the panels
and redoing it, because the fit was not correct. She appreciates the care that they take with
this.
The truck arrives to fetch the team at about
16:10. There are workers already on the
truck, and they walk down the drive and have a good look at everything, which
we find somewhat alarming.
Again, we repeat the pattern for the dogs: even though
there is no further chance that they could get through the wall, there are still
some gaps where they would be able to see each other: these will be sealed
tomorrow.
Friday 2018 04 06
We take the dogs to the backyard.
09:10 A bakkie arrives, bringing the team and the
person who did our original quote. Some
of them start plastering up the gaps on the neighbours' side; the rest stay on
our side to grind the last few panels down to size (a noisy, dusty process) and
lower them into place. They then do the
plastering on our side, where we have the more attractive face of the wall.
More workers arrive in a truck, and load the old fence
panels and sawn-off branches onto it.
There is a lot of bustle and discussion.
The dogs are very restless in the yard and it is quite
hot there, so we fetch them back to the kitchen on a tight leash.
The neighbours' burglar alarm sounds. Gail rushes next door, as we let the workers
into their gate this morning - both of them are at work. Nobody is prepared to say what happened. Gail phones Louis, who confirms that it could
not have been the beams in the garden, as they are switched off. He adds that they left the sliding door to
the house unlocked. Go figure.
The team eats lunch standing in the driveway - Patrick
says they don't have time to sit at the garden table. Gail adds coffee and muffins to their lunch.
The truck leaves and is later replaced by a second
one, onto which they load the rest of the panels and branches. The bustle continues as they level the ground
along the wall, sweep the driveway and shovel excess soil and gravel into
plastic containers to load onto the truck.
16:00 Everyone climbs onto the truck, and we wave them
off.
And here it is: the very high garden wall!
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