More driveway material Sunday, 28-Jun-26 22:54:14 CEST

Sunday, 05-Jul-26 21:27:39 CEST

Driveway construction started

This week the construction of the driveway started.

Monday 29 June

That night, a group of mosquitoes terrorized us. There was no window open, so it was a bit of a mystery how they got in. At one point, I got out of bed and finished filling up the dishwasher. I hoped I could kill a couple of mosquitoes while doing that, and then go to bed and sleep nicely. The dishwasher part worked out as planned. I went to be with earplugs. If I cannot hear that I am bitten, then at least I can sleep. As you can imagine, my smartwatch did not give me many points for my sleep last night.

Both DW and I had a day off because we were going back to MIL to continue the funeral arrangements for FIL. When we left the apartment yesterday, the coroner dressed up FIL and placed him in the coffin. Then he was brought to the mortuary yesterday evening. I am not familiar with these words; they are all new to me.

MIL had slept well. It was not that hot anymore, and she was perhaps even a little relieved that her husband could now rest. It had been troubling the last week. The three children were present: BIL, SIL, and DW. Also, the other BIL and I were present. The representative of the funeral organization came to talk us through the procedure and plan the funeral. It took almost two hours to settle and discuss most of the details. Outside the window, the Madonna Lily had started to fold out her flowers.

When the funeral entrepreneur left, the funeral was planned for next Monday. The text of the funeral card was written. A photo of MIL was found. I scanned the photo and sent it to the representative. We have come a long way with the preparations. I had a surreal feeling that, less than 24 hours ago, when we arrived yesterday, FIL was sleeping calmly, slightly snoring, in his bed. At lunchtime, MIL was asked if she wanted to eat in the apartment complex's lunchroom, and she agreed. I think it was a sign of resilience. She had a good meal with her friends, and that is good. She is a social person and needs contact with other people. While she had lunch, the envelopes were given addresses.

We postponed the funeral planning session for today. DW and I went home. We did not go straight home because we had a little side project to finish. Last week we started talking about curtains. Now we were out driving, we could as well pass an IKEA to pick up curtain tubes. We decided on the tiny IKEA in Harlem. It is just 28 thousand square meters compared to IKEA in Amsterdam, which is 37 thousand square meters. I must say that Amsterdam is more handy with the parking below the store. There were not many people, and everybody was well-behaved. That is always nice. We got our things, then went home. On the way home, we drove past IKEA in Amsterdam.

I had a nap to recharge my energy batteries. There is just so much you can muster after a night of mosquito terrorism.

Then, once I was on top of matters, I continued clearing the area around the barn to prepare for the driveway construction that starts tomorrow. I had the vague thought that perhaps there is one or another garden tile to be excavated from the clay. I found almost two square meters of garden tiles in the clay! This surprised me. I moved these tiles to the area around the sheep's rain roof, and they were curious about this new addition to their platform.

Then Pawel arrived with a digger and a loader. This was, in a way, the beginning of the construction project. Tomorrow, the real work will start, but here are some of the machines.

Tuesday 30 June

I woke up at my regular time, not to work, but to greet Pawel and welcome him when he arrived to start working on the driveway. I had a healthy 70 points for the sleep-with-no-mosquito-terror group. Merida had slept next to me, and that is lovely.

Pawel arrived. He had one helper with him today. It was Mirek, and he spoke only Polish. Pawel had found an issue with my design. It was an aesthetic detail with the concrete slabs on the south side of the barn. I used two slab dimensions so that one line would be broken. We discussed solutions to this. With a bit of shifting from the original plan, it was possible to use one large slab in front of the door to the atelier, which freed two 1.2-meter slabs for the south side of the barn, allowing all slabs there to be the same size. This will be more pleasing to the eyes. It was good that Pawel spotted this issue, because it was something I would have regretted later.

While Pawel and Mirek went around with a laser, I started transplanting the fennel that I sowed on 17 April. I sowed 9 buckets of fennel, and we got three sprouting. Fennel is a challenging crop to grow so far. I also sowed the rest of the fennel seeds in an overly dense pattern. If just one third survives, it is no big issue; the fennels are densely sown. I have my doubts, though. The raised bed on this side has had great issues with ants this year. It was an alarm in the ants' society when I transplanted the fennel. One of them bit me on my hand. They were so tiny, almost cute.

I do realize that the work on the driveway does not contain many emotions, perhaps other than that we are overwhelmingly happy that it will be easier to use the barn and the property will look better. So from here until Saturday, there will be many images of the construction work. That is how it is with building. It is like going on forever in small steps, and many of the steps have no wow factor. I do like images of diggers, shovels, and trucks, and if you do too, please enjoy. You could even skip until Saturday, when I celebrate a regular weekend.

	Before removing the old entrance.
	The old entrance was removed.

I removed our old entrance constructed from pallets and the top of a stainless steel grid. It has served us well, but now it is time for a new smooth and professional Schellevis concrete slab. We already figured out that we will mount the grid next to the door to make it easy to remove dirt from our shoes. But that is a later worry. The chichory plant that brought me so much joy had to be cut down.

Mirek created a box outside DS's house. It is not possible to pour gravel up towards the side of the tiny house since the foundation is not that solid. The solution is a box made of beautiful stones. I'm unclear on how this box will integrate with the rest of the driveway. I am sure it will look nice.

Pawel worked on filling up gravel for the other constructions in front of the barn and the atelier.

They worked until 8 PM.

Wednesday 1 July

Today I worked from home in the morning. DW had a day off. Outside, the machines rumbled as they worked on the driveway. Inside my head, thoughts about FIL rumbled. I had a productive day. I fixed an issue that had been found in a user interface I recently released. The sky was stunningly bright blue today.

Pawel's team moved the concrete slab for the door to the atelier, where it was put in place.

After lunch, we drove to MIL for another planning session for the upcoming ceremony. It was not as long a session as last Monday. In this meeting, it was decided that I would gather photos of FIL. Outside the window of MIL, the Madonna lily had begun to bloom. I had said to her that we would be back when it was blooming, but I had not thought it would be under these circumstances.

The ceremony is now planned. I had not thought it would be so much work to arrange a funeral.

We drove back home. While we were away, the bright orange suction machine had broken. Pawel knew people who fixed it again. It is just that it takes time, and that is not good because time is money.

They put out the large slabs outside the large doors of the barn.

I was a bit worried because one of the slabs was not connecting to the other. There was a ridge. I decided to talk to Pawel about that tomorrow.

In the evening, I worked on FIL's photos. It was a lot of work. We got an old Xerox scanner, but it had lost its configuration, so it could not be used at first. I made it operational again.

Thursday 2 July

Today I worked from home. DW had a day off. I start the morning by welcoming the construction team at 7 AM and unlocking the barn. They like to have their first cup of coffee right away. Sylvester and Mirek drink coffee with a lot of sugar. Pawel likes it black, but he often lets the coffee get cold. He is not a hot beverage guy.

	At the beginning of the day, the plates at the door had a height discrepancy. I talked to Pawel about it.
	It rained. It was interesting to see the reflection in the concrete for the first time.
	At the end of the day, the height discrepancy was removed. I was delighted!

Another question was how to connect the plates near DS's house properly. The plates were placed down symmetrically. I had another idea for how to let the lines meet up.

In the evening, I worked on the photos for FIL's funeral ceremony.

Friday 3 July

Today it was my 69^th birthday! I was not in any celebration mode today. I woke up at 6:30 AM, as usual, to prepare to receive the gentlemen from the construction company at 7 AM. They are hard workers; they start at 7 AM and often continue to about 8 PM. They do eat one thin sandwich at 12 PM, but they drink a lot of coffee and sugar.

At the construction site, the main goal for the day was to place the concrete slabs. One slab will be placed later because a water downpipe is running through it. The downpipe has a dent in two spots. It has to be replaced. I pledged to drill a hole through the slab and run the downpipe through it. Usually, this is not how it is solved, but since the downpipe will be replaced, it can also be done that way. They will need to rent a drill, and it is an extra task. I know, I am a demanding customer, but it will look absolutely amazing.

Also, this evening we worked on collecting photos of FIL for the ceremony on Monday. I realized that the work on the photos pushed the blogging to the side; it is what it is. This body just has two hands. Talking about hands, mine are larger than DW's. She got smaller, smoother, beautiful hands, while I got bigger, lumpier hands. My hands are misshaped by Heberden's nodes.

Saturday 4 July

This morning, when I woke up, Merida was sleeping next to me.

You would think that the driveway construction workers would get a well-deserved rest after five days of working from 7 AM to 8 PM, but these are Polish people. They continue to work on Saturday as well. I got up at 6:30 as if it were a regular day and welcomed the guys at 7 AM.

The preparations for laying out the stones started today. They placed stones along the sides of the driveway for quick access while hammering them into the pavement. Each stone will be individually placed in the driveway.

Today we had a day off. The first thing I did was to move the sheep to the southwest field. Then I took out the lawn mower to cut the northwest field.

I make it sound simple, but the construction workers had placed the suction machine in the barn hall, by the door opening, blocking the door so I could get the lawn mower out of the barn.

At first, plan A was to wait to see whether they would use the large machine blocking the door, but they opted for a smaller suction machine instead. That is correct; they got two. With that, I decided on plan B, to put the large suction machine on a wheeled plate. That way, I would be able to push the machine aside.

That worked out magnificently. I used the trade lifts to lift the machine, with planks supporting it. I lifted the machine in phases. When it was high enough, the wheeled plate could be rolled under the machine. Then I could push the machine aside and drive the lawn mower out of the barn for the first time without a wooden pallet ramp. I was feeling magnificent!

I got some raised eyebrows from Mirek and Sylwester; they wondered how I had moved a machine they had to use a digger to move.

I also cleaned our heating pump. It was starting to become green from algae. It rinsed the mesh with soap, vinegar, and water. It worked really well. This operation was supposed to happen in early spring, but there were so many higher-priority things. I think it actually costs me energy not doing things. Now, when it is done, I am really happy about it.

At lunch, we had tea from the garden: Mint, sage, black currant, and indian cress. These garden mixes are not everyone's cup of tea, but I like sage tea, and it is nice that this comes fresh from the garden. The Indian cress flower is spicy when eaten, but it does not impart much spiciness to the tea. For that to happen, I might need more flowers. I also like experimenting with flavors from time to time. A bit of taste experiments to spice up life!

The edible flowers bed is now a colorful spectacle. I love it! Sometimes, when I pass by, I pick a flower just as a snack. It has a peppery taste. I noticed two insects around a flower.

One of the insects was collecting nectar, while the other hovered over the flower as if waiting for its turn.

I recently rediscovered the smartphone's portrait mode. When selected, it recreates the bokeh look of regular DSLR cameras. You should try it as well!

In the afternoon, I started practicing with the DJ decks. I opened the barn doors and played music starting at 120 BPM. It was great to play the decks again. It has been such a long time since I used the decks that I rediscovered both the music and the mixing methods. I am not a highly technical DJ doing all sorts of tricks and changes to the songs. I am just mixing the songs.

After my DJ set, I went to pick up DD for a couple of days' visit.

Sunday 5 July

We had a slow morning. Even Merida had a slow morning. The construction of the driveway was postponed until Monday. It was wonderfully peaceful in the morning.

The common hollyhock started flowering. This is a remarkable flower. It is taller than me, and I see no signs that it will stop growing.

The main event today was going to MIL. It would seem unnecessary to visit when we were about to meet on Monday as well, but this was a convenient moment. Besides, we could check out the speech MIL was going to hold at the ceremony and talk about clothing.

It turned out to be a more productive visit than I had anticipated. MIL was in a good mood. She was not going to wallow in despair. We took a walk to the nearby mortuarium to check out if the flowers had arrived. They had!

This was a precious moment. It was lovely that we could visit the coffin and check out how things were progressing. It smelled nicely of the flowers. We sat there mostly silent. Talked a little about how things were going. One must understand that MIL is a flowers person. The Madonna lily in the main piece was not up to the standard of perfection. It could be spiced up with the lilies that MIL had outside her apartment. Besides, FIL had been seeing these flowers develop this spring, so it was only logical that some of them would decorate the coffin. It was decided that we would return to MIL's apartment and expedite the plan immediately.

Here is MIL sitting on her rollator, overseeing the work of cutting three flowering Madonna lilies. DW is cutting, and BIL makes sure the flowers are placed carefully in a basket for transport to the mortuary. It seems so simple, but it is a delecate teamwork.

Back in the mortuary, the flowering Madonna lilies are replacing some of the closed Madonna lily buds. The white element added to the piece makes the overall flower decoration of all the flower pieces look more cohesive.

After the flower swap, we were done for today. Everything was ready for a ceremony early tomorrow.

Or was it? BIL had washed the car, but our car was still dirty. It had slipped my mind. We drove home, and there I took the car to the car wash. I made the car go through an extra expensive car wash.

Then we went to bed early. We had to be at the mortuary well on time tomorrow morning, so it was essential that all worked as well as possible.

Here ends this week's blog. I wrote 3013 words this week.