This week Stu and I were over in Northampton doing some block paving and putting up some replacement facia and soffit.  We had some scaffolding erected at the end of the previous week and our first job on the Monday was to take down all the old facia and soffit and when that was done we set about putting together a shopping list for all the materials we would need.  We decided to do a half day and pick up all the materials on our way home back to Peterborough.  On Tuesday morning we had to put in some additional timbers to take the new facia and soffit and in the afternoon we set about fixing the new facia and soffit into position.  The following day Stu remained up on the scaffold to apply all of the finishing touches to the facia and put back the guttering.  I chose to dig out the earth for the new block paving which we were putting in so as to provide a new parking bay.  In the cooler morning weather the thought of a day’s hand digging didn’t seem too bad, especially as I only had to dig out an area of around 10 sq metres.  Come middle afternoon when the sun was beating down and the temperature was in the high 20’s and I had dug about three tonnes of earth and was quickly running out of energy, my decision to hand dig didn’t seem such a good one after all.
 

Thursday was the start to a new day and after a good night’s rest I had the remaining earth out and the skip pretty much filled.  Stu had finished the facia and soffit and we both got on with putting down a six inch layer of hardcore in the base of the paving area, and then Stu ran over the area with a whacker plate to compact it down.  Next we put down a two inch layer of sharp sand which we levelled off ready to start laying the block paving.  We then layed the majority of the block paving so that we just had the edges to finish off on the Friday.  By lunch time we had all the cuts put in and the edges finished off.  We filled in all the holes with some kiln sand and then Stu finished things off with a few more runs with the whacker to settle everything into position.