Allotment Week - I has a shed

Ta daa!

Whilst the rest of the UK is suffering 8ft Snow drifts, here in "sunny" London there are little whisps of snow drifting about and it's only about 0c.

So I was on site at about 8am this morning. They said that he shed would be delivered between 8am and 10am. So the first job of the day before they arrive is to start shovelling the mound of soil into a single linear "bed". It's going to take a while to get through the mound, so I have been advised that the best thing to do is pile it all up, stick some weed membrane over it and plant my courgettes in it. Seems like a sensible idea as the ground is way to damp for sieving it.

But no sooner has I started than a small flatbed truck turns up with a huge pile of wood. Fortunately it was not all for me as the driver had other deliveries to make, but I was first on the list. So a quick offload and I start with the basic ingredients.

Now the platform I built was a little larger than the footprint of the shed. Not a problem, but it does mean that I have to be careful how I position it. I decided that he best bet is to put the shed as far back as possible so that the grape vine can grow up and over. So the florr gets nailed down to the platform. I had to pre-drill the nail holes to prevent to wood splitting as I used the large size nails that I made the platform with.

Now the sides. A word to the wise. Never try and put up a shed on your own in a wind. It was no end of hassles. My fingers were going numb. As was the tip of my nose (the rest of my head was covered with a full face balaclava so I was nice and warm. But trying to get the first side and door gable up was a real nightmare. In the end I had to put some nails into the wood that I will be using for the beds and nail them to the sides to get them to stay. Whilst I started getting the huge coach bolts, which hold it all together, put in. Once I had the four sides then it was a lot more stable.

Ah the roof. Here is the downfall of my plan to put the shed on a platform. It's too high. Fortunately being a Committee member I have a key and access to the equipment storage area, so off I trot to the other side of the road (the Allotments are split in two by Martin Way - hence the name Martin Way Allotments) a grab a tall ladder from the store. But of course the ground is quite soft and it took a bit of balancing the get everything done. But I managed in the end.

The shed is not quite finished. According to the instructions, I am supposed to tack the roofing felt underneath the gables. Well it is just too damn cold and the felt is too stiff and seems to want to split if I do that. So I think that is going to have to wait until spring is finally here.

Waddya mean it is here? You could have fooled me. I want a warm room and a hot drink.