Romeo, Romeo

Doesn't seem fair that after all the effort taken to get the garden in shape, we now have what's on the way to being one of the worst summers on record. The climate here has been so bad that the regular topic of conversation, food, has been replaced by discussions about the weather. Just like in the UK.
I have however been putting the wet weekends to good use and have finally drawn up the steel balcony ready for tender. Also in the pipeline is the construction of the terrace. I'll be building it myself in timber decking with a little bit of help from The Skater.

Star Arch

let me know what you think of the new project we have in the office:

We have to design this house somewhere in the 94 where 20 young student architects are going to live for 2 months - of course the house is full of remotely controlled cameras (reflecting the urban environment of an imminent 'google street live' future).

The students are taught academy style by tough and ruthless young wolves (winners of Moniteur premier oeuvre prizes and the like) who shout at them bawl them down and generally rip up their drawings.

At the end of each week they are told they will be able to sketch up a scheme with a great architect - on friday night Jean/Norman/Zaha turns up in his/her ferrari/porsche/mini cooper and the whole thing goes out live on prime time (well, ok maybe Arte). at the end of the evening the audience votes for the scheme that sucks the most and the poor sod gets kicked out on his arse. The show will unfortunately lack one of the main ingredients of the previous shows - the students will be too shagged out to get shagged. The winner of the whole thing (only one stupid enough to be left at the end of two months for those of you without television) gets to recover the 10 year defects liability on the house and goes on to be an outplacement student helping out  Bradd Pitt do the difficult curvy bits in Frank O Gherys office.

It's called StarARCH, or maybe TOPArch or Master Builder?

it's coming soon on a screen near you.

Update

More or less where we are today - waiting for better weather to finish off the stone wall started in the summer.




The planting arrived in the autumn of 2012.
















A lawn lift, plastic surgery on your lawn.












Photos from the works - still retroblogging to catch up with the present in time for spring.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Agent Orange

In an attempt to catch up with the present I'm retro-blogging. All this happened in June 2012. The jungle was cleared in the blink of an eye exposing the pile of reclaimed limestone from the old house.