16 June 2007

Bear with us - a full history of a first month as plotters will follow. Meanwhile, we need to get today on record.

Kim bought a shed on eBay (£70) and this morning (Saturday) we hooked up our medium-sized trailer to our car and ventured into St Albans to dismantle the shed and take it home for installation on the allotment.

Nice couple, with two toddler boys. The shed was rustic (which is what we wanted) and whole. It looked pleasingly well-used. It came apart relatively easily (hammer). and we soon had a rustic-looking shed in flatpack form.

It fit into the trailer - once we had removed the tailgate. Thankfully the man of the house was a physicist, and advised on effective arrangement of the panels (which stuck up a good eight feet off the ground) for aerodynamics and stability. A tepee-like solution emerged.

With joy in our hearts, we set off around the corner. Our moods turned at the first turn. The flimsy tin walls of our plucky medium-sized trailer proved no match for the g-forces of the shed walls. One side crumpled a bit, but enough to raise profound questions about our continued roadworthiness.

So, Nicholas wheeled the trailer plus shed back to the shed's former owners' driveway. We then shuffled off to rent a van (£58) for the day.

In the end, the shed is in pieces on our allotment, ready for construction tomorrow (if the skies are clear).

Reluctantly, we purchased (rather than found) some rubber tile-thingies for the shed base to sit on. Reluctantly, because most of our equipment so far has been recovered from the local recycling centre or from people's skips (often with permission). We never noticed how many wooden pallets there are, waiting to become landfill. We are going to make a compost holder with them and a gate to fit into the as yet non-existent perimeter fence. (And, in due course, a fort - N.)

Today's discoveries: two ripe raspberries. And more potato plants are emerging (which will mean more to you when we have provided the history of our allotment's first month. Right now, though, we have to go watch Doctor Who from behind the sofa.