As a carpenter, landscape gardener and all round expert in construction I make a very good computer programmer.

Having helped build two decks in the past and sick of a rear that looks like this:

That's the rear of the house, not my own rear.

it was decided to construct a deck to link it all together. This is a work in progress. Step was was to smash stuff up:

Smashed, dug up and generally mangled.

Step two was to build some sort of framework that has to slope in two directions:

I hope there are more joists, and what of the noggins?

At this stage, the diary was thus:

• Saturday - smash everything to bits. Hit things hard with hammers. Discover concrete. Smash concrete.
• Sunday - design the exact deck to fit what's left after smashing. Visit screwfix. Visit DIY center. Visit screwfix again. Then spend 3pm - 9pm attaching things to other things.
• Monday - a hard day's assembly

Here are more photos from the above work.

  







After a few hours heavy grafting this saturday, several noggins and joists took their place in the deck:

Some nice green boxes of screws; the noggined sections provide a great place to hide spare rocks.