The MUD, its 'driving' us crazy!!!

By the time the Loadall had run up and down the drive and through the fields, turning with its rear wheel steering, in narrow gateways, the place was in a bit of a muddy mess, so we thought that if we got the man with the mini digger in to scrape off the surface mud that had been transferred onto the drive, it would help to sort things out. We also thought he'd be able to fill in the ruts in the fields, but the weather wasn't kind and it rained all day, and as he scraped just a weeny bit more off the drive than we would have liked, the mud got worse. So we set him to work on the ruts in the field, which he managed to do something with, but some still needed the attention of a spade and a pair of wellies. Having been up to our ears in mud for couple of days - which was a couple too many, we were going through the options of how and where to get some stones - this still being in the Hogmany holidays. Nowhere was open. A call to a friend who lives near the local quarry and who's husband just so happens to know the guy who drives the lorry, set the delivery and spreading of a lot of "inch-down" and another mini digger with another driver, in motion. Inch-down is a stoney/dusty mix that should soak up the mud and bed down and set nice and solid. I went to collect Peter and the mini digger, and he continued the mud scraping exercise on the rest of the drive, and a little while later, Jim the driver arrived with the first 10tonnes of stone, which Peter duly spread with the digger. It was originally estimated that 10tonnes would do, but then we thought 20 would be better. That hardly covered from the front to back door, so we had a third delivery, which got us to the bottom gate, and then we were sure that one last load would do it, but it was clear when that arrived that we would need....another 10tonnes. In total, we had 60tonnes of the stuff, and about 20tonnes of that was spread, shovelled, barrowed and levelled by hand - thanks Muckle Flugga Man. We've since borrowed a whacker device from a neighbour, but there's been nothing but hard frost since - and you can't whack when it's frosty. Looks good for tomorrow though, a bit rainy just now which has thawed the remaining frost pockets.

And did I mention that while we had the Loadall, we shifted a couple of old vans that have been gathering rust for a few too many years? I'm surprised that bit of it went as well as it did, you've only got to look at the pics to see it was a bit of a tricky job getting them from their tucked away little parking spaces to the two trailers we had to borrow.