Sprinting to the finishing line.
If I thought yesterday was stressful...Time to delegate properly. I gave Hazel a list of 11 mini-projects to finish without me. She whirled into action, summoning drills, ladders, cement, vine eyes and wire and got stuck in. What a complete star she is.
I had sixty plants to get planted in 4 hours. It doesn't take a genius to work out that that is one every 4 minutes. Deduct time for at least one more test. Deduct time for clearing up and watering.
Worse, some of the plants needed to go in areas which were underlaid with hardcore from the previous paths and patios. I got hold of Jeff and pleaded - it wasn't reasonable for me to have to dig through that. He agreed (it was on the list of valid exceptions) and Geoff came on site to dig the holes. But it was very slow going and I needed to finish the water feature, lay weed control fabric and mulch with gravel around where he was working.
The 'Pot Luck' test
Half way through the morning I was summoned for the second test. Relax, said Joe, this one's just a bit of fun. A bit of fun!! These guys have an interesting sense of humour... I felt I'd made a reasonable stab at two of my three questions and sprinted back to the garden. I'd lost about 15 minutes, with filming re-takes and we were now seriously up against it.
Mike's request
At about midday Joe summoned us to Mike's garden. Mike couldn't finish without hard landscaping help for an hour. Would we grant it? We tried to negotiate. Could we all have help? Could the other four have an extra hour instead? It was all no. We were to vote on whether Mike could have help, that was all. Of course we said yes, unanimously. (Curiously, this was completely edited out of the final programme)
Joe: 'Sue, will you finish on time?'
Me: 'I honestly don't know...'
I was convinced we would get a last minute extension to 2pm, partly because they did last year and partly because of our support for Mike. But by 12.30 I still had all the gravel to do, the water feature to finish, some plants to train and a heck of a lot of clearing up. Plus watering. Joe stuck his head round the gate.
'Remember, you have to finish it to win it' he said, to no-one in particular.
I got the hint. We gave up on the weed control fabric and hit the accelerator. Jeff started heaving bags of gravel towards me.
'Where do you want them?'
'On my shoulder - one every 30 seconds!' I yelled. Geoff obliged - I carried them, split them open, poured out the contents. Hazel pushed it into place. With about 10 mintues to go we switched on the water feature and arranged the big stones - miraculously it looked OK first time.
Bodies started appearing, removing tools and unwanted materials. I barked instructions to anyone and everyone within earshot, like some mini Sergeant Major.
'That can go - I need that one - yes that's rubbish - no, to me - now!'
There was no extension. A few minutes after 1pm Joe blew the whistle and we backed out of the gate, carrying the last of the tools with us.
By the garage, a gang of people were trying to finish assembling the leaf canopy that I'd given up on an hour ago. They figured it out, and with the crew distracted for a moment, Hazel shot back into the garden and fixed it in place.
posted by Sue Beesley @ 7:08 PM
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