First day on site

Well its the first day on site - Friday 13th May! Neil, Nigel Pete and Steve arrive early ready to meet the lorry loaded the previous day. Forklift arrives and materials such as blocks, sand, cement and ballast await on site. Brian and the lads from organicstone arrive with all the paving. The first thing to do is to cover the site with black polythene and mark out the plan - path first.

I arrive late morning and the paving boys are already laying out a dry run of slabs to work out the laying pattern - this makes it easier for Pete and Steve as the path goes down.

We mark out the rest of the plan - this is where you have to adaptable on site. Because of the legs of the pavilion, inspection hatches, water points and other obstacles the path of the stream has to change - so does the route of the path. Think I may have tried to put too much in the space -time will tell. Of course the other problem is I'm not sure the liners will be long enough for the new route - fingers crossed!

I mark out the positions of the trees for Saturday morning. Nigel starts the mixer and Pete and Steve get the ramps down to make access easier for Saturday morning. The first slabs go down soon after 2 p.m.

Outside around the show site things are busy and congested. As gardens become more ambitious the machinery gets bigger. A lorry is pouring concrete into a pit outside the pavilion - one of the gardens. The foundations look big enough for a tower block. A crane blocks the corner - the main access to the route around the pavilion. At this stage it is hard to imagine how the chaos will ever become order - but it always does - somehow!

Here's what it looks like on video.......................................