I hate doing the hard manual labour thing. Too weak and feeble, no patience, no stamina. Just as well I have other skills... But sometimes, like this afternoon, I have no choice. We're building a fence around the vegetable patch to keep the chickens out. So Linda and I spent the afternoon taking turns with spades and sledge hammers, circular saws and spirit levels. All good fun until the aches and pains kick in. That's about 10 minutes into the job for me! Oh, and never let anyone tell you that Metposts make the job easy. They twist and turn as you drive them in, and much of the time you hit a stone, and end up digging most of the post hole anyway. Next time I'm using concrete. I said that last time. "That's just saving problems for the future" say's Linda. So, post 5 of 9 and we hit concrete. A big piece of concrete. Must have been from an old washing line post. It's probably been there 50 years. It's so big, we can't dig it out, so end up thumping it with the sledge hammer in the hope that in might break. It doesn't, of course. After half an hour of this we've made little impression on it. We give up. Try again next weekend with something electric from the hire shop. That'll get it. So now we're both tired and aching, job not finished, but I think we've earned our beer tonight. Cheers!

A year ago today: My PotD April 4th 03