Joni's Birthday and some Gardening

Its been a while since i last blogged, its been a busy couple of weeks.

Firstley it was Big Presentation time at work. I have to give a presentation via a web-link to the big Americans who are funding my work. This week was the first one of those. Giving a talk through a screne worked quite well actually, although i was sat down at a desk so i wish i hadn't bothered with the uncomfortable smart trousers!

Also this week has been Jonis birthday. Here he is with his birthday cake:

Poor Joni had to work on his birthday, so he had quite a quiet one. Just a nice lazy breakfast with me, and then cake in the evening. He was off on Friday so we went to Dee Sea World in North Queensferry. It was really good! They have one of those "underwater tunnels" which was so good! We spent ages walking around it looking at sharks and fish and crabs and divers trying to sink a boat (soo funny, they were trying to get this battered old boat to sit on the bottom as a new feature and it kept floating up, who would have thought it could be so hard to sink a boat?). I think the olny slight dampener on the trip was a small school trip, from which the parents had absolutely no control. they let the kids all go to the shop in the middle of the trip and buy loads of sweets, and then they all went stampeding around the tunnel, which was pretty annoying. Stupid parents.

Because we were in North Queensferry we got to see the bridge (thats the Forth Road Bridge btw) really up close. I even got to touch the legs! Its even more impressive when  you can see it stretching out above you.

Today we were gardening all day, and once again we have made a huge difference. We were at it for about 7 hours, and we are both now totally knackered, but it was good fun. I think i have jarred my wrist digging up rocks thought, its really sore now. I'v taken lots of photos.

 This is where we started today. 

 And this was the big pile of wood we wanted to burn today.

 Here is Joni and his friend James building our little fire up into a very big fire. 

 Here is Joni enjoying some lunch, with our quite large fire. It turned into a very very big fire actually, after 6 hours worth of burning, but it did get rid of lots of bits of tree and rotting wood. And ivy. So much ivy.

 Here is Joni with the corrugated sheets that took us hours to dig out and move and discover underneath 10 stacks of tiles, gerr! But luckily, as they were quiet neatly stacked, they are perfect for a little decking.

And here it is when we were finished. Such a huge difference - we burnt so much wood, and cleared soo much rubble. Im really looking forward to relaxing in this space now. Next up, to clear up fully and level out the ground ready for the decking!