Armistice

Well, actually two armistices.  The first one came after a visit from the Structural Engineer (I like him, so I'm giving him capital letters) who expressed considerable concern for the safety of anyone working in the bottom of our trenches.  There were several factors at play here:

1. The walls falling in, sometimes in big lumps, always unpredictably
2. The depth of the trench - over two metres so far, and only just hit the top of the house foundations
3. Rain - and more rain predicted

He said he would talk to the builder (they're all mates who have worked together before). The following day, after another collapse, the single piece of shuttering they'd put up fell inwards under the weight of mud. 

single piece of shuttering, still up (just)

So there was Dean in the bottom of the trench, gallantly trying to shovel mud out from behind the shuttering, whilst standing between it and a huge mound.  The fallen earth had left a two foot deep overhang, which, if it had chosen to fall, would surely have broken both is legs and trapped him under four tons of mud. So I went all managerial and told him to get out of there while we had another go at trying to put some safety into the whole show.  After all, massive loss of life has been tried before, and it didn't result in a very nice extension in 1914.

Armistice #1.  Overhanging stuff. Our brave boys stand ready (on top of the overhang, natch)

Phone calls ensued.  The Structural Engineer talked to the builder, and the builder talked to the digger driver, and the digger driver pointed out that if he did what the Structural Engineer wanted (which was to grade all the sides of the hole out to 45° slopes) he would then be unable to get the digger out of the garden, because of the resulting step up to the edge of the drive, and also unable to access parts of the ditch.  Hmmm.

Meanwhile, I went to sleep.  I expected someone to call me and explain what they were going to do, but...

Eventually I woke up ("in bear emerging from hibernation" mode) and went to see what was going on.  Dean was back in the trench, but at the other end, where there wasn't an overhang. Nothing much else seemed to have changed.

At this point I though, "Well I've had my say"; so I told Dean that I would be on his side if he decided he didn't like it at any point, and let them get on with it.  Here's what they did:

That's Dean, who is about 5' 10", below the top of the shuttering, which is about 3ft below ground level - so roughly 9ft deep!  Anyway, the building inspector came and said it was good; and so, it was good.  Next day they finished off the box, 

finished box

and the concrete came...

concrete - actually nearly all gone when this was taken

and our stout-hearted yeomen set to with barrows (!) to fill the thing up

A barrow boy

I must admit that my heart sank slightly at this point as I thought it would take longer than the remaining hours of daylight to do this, but amazingly they finished it in about an hour and a half.

And then they tucked it up for the night in yet more OSB and we all went to bed.  The second armistice was signed, and the collapsing garden gave up the fight in the face of surprisingly good weather, 30-odd tons of concrete and a lot of backfilling.

When it was all over, I was talking to Kieran the digger driver (still no word of Rusty, by the way.  I think the Wing Commander must have written a letter to his wife) who said he was just about to go on a course to renew his digger driving ticket, which had in fact already run out.  I said, "Oh, so you're probably not insured then?"  He looked quite wistful, and was unusually quiet for a few moments. "I suppose not", said he.