Another Brick out of the Wall

[callmemadam]

Work started last Monday. More depressing pictures follow.



The area of destruction is much greater than I was led to believe. I thought a strip of about one foot would go, which wouldn't have mattered very much. This is where my erythroniums were, also two fine plants of Geranium psilostemon, clumps of Lily of the Valley and other stuff.



Neat workmen. These are the salvageable bricks. The cage is to stop any bricks falling on the children next door.



Rejected bricks chucked in the yard.



An ex-fig tree.



Rather lovely in their own way. I shall try to look on this as a new planting opportunity but can't get over the fact that it's thousands of pounds down the drain.

Comments

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

The whole wall is coming down. It's very slow, careful work: tap, chip, tap all day. Then it will be replaced by a fence. For anyone who missed previous posts on this, the wall has become dangerous because thirty-odd years ago the builders of the house next door dug away at the foundations. According to our builders, they knew fine well what they were doing and were just after a quick buck. We can't claim on the insurance because it's gradual damage. I can hardly stand it on top of everything else.

[dovegreyreader.livejournal.com]

That looks just tragic, you must be feeling sick as a parrot over it all.I can't even think of anything jolly to say which is most unlike me so probably shouldn't have posted anything, but this sort of thing makes me weep on your behalf.It's a constant problem in Tavistock where the gardens are so steep and retaining walls that have been there since Victorian times now suddenly buckling with the bills running into tens of thousands.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your sympathy. It is a Victorian wall and we can't afford to have it rebuilt. Our house is a conversion of the old stables of a big house which was demolished. The new houses were built on the site. How I wish we'd bought one of them instead.

[gghost.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so sorry. What a terribly frustrating situation it must be for you. But your house sounds much more interesting that living in a newer one.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It is a nice house but I'm afraid 'interesting' as in 'hard to run'. All old houses have problems but my friends tell me new ones do, too. Can you believe this? A friend of mine had a bran new house built last year, moved in and within months was flooded out because of a plumbing fault! They had to live upstairs for a while, poor things.