{"id":1423,"date":"2013-10-27T13:42:02","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T13:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/?p=1423"},"modified":"2013-10-27T13:42:02","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T13:42:02","slug":"more-progress-than-i-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/?p=1423","title":{"rendered":"More Progress Than I Expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anna and I got some way on the back porch (after much procrastination) but then unfortunately her Grandmother in Italy died and she had to head off in a hurry. Our thoughts are with her and her family. The porch will await her return.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1425\" alt=\"Anna working on porch\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2015.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"857\" srcset=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2015.jpg 640w, https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2015-224x300.jpg 224w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Yesterday was quite overwhelming and I was having a bit of a down moment, when, as if from heaven, my neighbour Antony arrived with his digger and asked if we&#8217;d like a driveway built.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1430\" alt=\"the first bit of soil to move\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/PICT00311.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/PICT00311.jpg 640w, https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/PICT00311-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It was a scary moment because I, while ostensibly being in charge, had no idea what the right way to go about it was. But Antony&#8217;s done this sort of thing before and was happy to take away the excess topsoil as well as pushing around the bits in order to form the sloped drive we need.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1429\" alt=\"Antony's toys\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/PICT0029.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/PICT0029.jpg 640w, https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/PICT0029-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It was really exiting to watch, and we found a bit of large scale treasure in the form of two old milk churns, cast aside who knows how many years ago and left under enough leaf fall and junk to become topsoil on top of them.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"milk churn found in dirt\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2019.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"857\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The slab of concrete Anna painstakingly uncovered has now been broken up and taken away.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1431\" alt=\"The great monster building the drive\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2018.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"478\" srcset=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2018.jpg 640w, https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2018-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And this is as far as we got yesterday; not far enough to constitute a drive yet, but not all that far off. I need to get a bit more of the lower level ready, and then we can figure out where to rebuild what walls to hold it all in place and make it beautiful.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"the drive\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2035.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"478\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, in other news, Balthazar is becoming less of a kitten and more of a cat, at least in appearance, but shows very little sign of growing up in personality. Bit of a teenager.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Anna and the kitten\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/PICT00181.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But he&#8217;s really got the cute thing going on. And knows how to work it.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Obligatory cute kitten picture\" src=\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_2014.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"478\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anna and I got some way on the back porch (after much procrastination) but then unfortunately her Grandmother in Italy died and she had to head off in a hurry. Our thoughts are with her and her family. The porch &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/?p=1423\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1432,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions\/1432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}