Sunny.

As promised the builder arrived at 7.45 with the bricklayers arriving not long after. I had woken early and had prepared breakfast and done my DuoLingo before they all arrived. The bush across the end of the wall was still causing problems and again it was suggested that they cut it back. I roped up most of the bush and removed some dead branches that were in the way and made it clear that I really didn't want to lose the privacy that bush gives us. And they managed to get the blocks in but I did give them slices of lemon drizzle cake along with their mugs of tea as I know I made their job harder.

After their tea break they went off for a well deserved breakfast.

It had been hard to visualise the height of the wall as not only is there a step up to the paving but the rest of the garden slopes quite dramatically. After some consultation I settled on the height in the above photo but looking at the wall while they were out for breakfast I realised it would soon be upper chest high. A bit too high for a raised bed. When they came back they only had a couple of blocks to remove.

The builders worked hard and were finished by late afternoon. The bed across the terrace (above) is fairly high but is in proportion with the terrace wall. However when I looked longer at the side bed I realised that the wall was still too high.

Much as I prefer to have a single height across the main part of the bed I felt it would be better to put a second step in the wall. It didn't take long to scrape away the drying mortar and carefully lift off six blocks which I stacked inside the bed as the start of two cross walls.

I looked again and decided that new wall would line up better with the garden wall behind it if the half block at the end of the first step was removed so that came off too. The builder is coming back tomorrow to put sand in the footings so we don't trip into them before we get round to putting the facing blocks on and to tidy up the paving slabs which got broken when they were digging out the footings. Typically or as our builder called it 'old Borth style' the paving slabs were laid on top of another layer of slabs. He says he comes across that sort of thing all the time here.

It has been sunny all day but the wind has been veering all over the place. One minute it was blowing hot air from the south, the next cold air from the east. In the afternoon the off shore wind blew some children on a paddleboard out to sea. Our neighbour who was cutting his tall hedge from the street heard the cries of the youngsters and called the coastguard who sent out the lifeboat to rescue them. Two other people phoned 999 as well but even though I'd heard some shouting when I was talking to the builders I thought it was kids on the beach and didn't take much notice. If it happens again I'll be sure to check with my binoculars. I don't think the beach lifeguards will be here until the half-term holiday at the end of May. Aparently their paddleboard had begun to deflate and the children were cold, wet and frightened when they were rescued.

I spent most of the day in the sitting room either writing up my journal notes or ironing so that I could be on hand if the builder needed to ask me something.