Now that the concrete driveway is gone we were able to get on with relocating the main electricity supply cable to the workshop.
The suspended cable, more than 40m long, straight across the garden is an eyesore.
After buying a decent pickaxe I was able to make good progress on a narrow trench to bury the cable inside a lined conduit. It did take a couple of weeks, working just a few hours each morning before the sun made it too difficult to work.
There were some obstacles on the route and we hadn't expected to encounter an additional concrete base in the garden near Janet's compost bin. There was a decent layer of soil over the concrete and it was overgrown with weeds when we first arrived at the house. A change of plan meant curving the trench past the concrete and between the spikey plants at the edge of the garden, but that was easier than trying to hack through even more concrete.
Here are a couple of the rocks which will now be re-purposed for repairing the roadside wall.
I did also find the main water supply pipe to the house and was lucky not to hack into it with the pick as it is only about a foot deep.
After all the effort of digging the trench and guessing where to put a hole through the wall in the side of the workshop, we enlisted the help of one of Janet's work colleagues to drop the existing cable from its lofty supports, then draw it through the conduit tube and finally lay the tube in the trench.
I originally thought that the cable would need to be shortened, but while putting it into position I became more and more concerned that it might not be long enough. With an incredible stroke of luck, the guessed position of the hole allowed for the exact length of cable to be connected in its new position.
Now the electric supply to the workshop is fully functional and hidden from view, the final step was to remove the hideous metal bracket from the side of the house.
This task simply involved rigging a rope to support the frame and then cutting through the lower bracket - which was actually a steel fishplate used for joining the old railway tracks, presumably liberated from the railway when the line upgrades were taking place a number of years ago. Once the bottom part was free the upper arm could simply be maneuvered out of its hole in the wall, it was simply inserted at an angle into a hole and not really fixed in place!
Now, only the main house electricity supply and the telephone/internet cables are cluttering up the wall of the house. There are a couple of other metal brackets to remove before the painting takes place but these need either a decent ladder or a scaffold to reach.
A much nicer image than when we had the monstrous TV aerial and the crazy bracket for the electric cable.
When the rendering is finally completed and the whole house is painted it should look 1000% better.
Also, the view from the living room window has improved in the past two years.
