THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT

Before getting into this I should perhaps make it clear that concreting was not my alternative boyhood fantasy to being a train driver. (Actually I wanted to be a tramcar driver, or  centre-forward  for Newcastle United Football Club, but unfortunately tramcars died out, and my footballing skills were only in the mind. - so I got a job with a Bank.)

Tennis, table-tennis, and snooker were passing fancies as the years rolled by, then came the time when we could frequent pubs. None of the crowd went home at chucking-out time, (10.00pm in those far off days) on the basis that parents would likely be unimpressed with our inebriated condition - so the 'adult' alternative was to stagger along to a local dance-hall. There we breathed alcohol fumes all over the opposite sex as they pushed us round the dance-floor before they limped off to try and find a partner who was sober and who could dance.

Obviously this wild lifestyle, mixing beer, women and song could only lead to one outcome and eventually all of our group were taken in hand by public spirited females who got us off the streets and into a married state.

In the absence of the beer and song I turned to D.I.Y.activities, aided and abetted by 'the Wife', to a point where, over the years, we even began tackling projects that were not essential. At the same time we were gradually moving to a situation where D.I.Y. was not being forced upon us by financial circumstances so either we liked the challenges or we just couldn't get out of the habit of being very careful with our money (some might call it miserly).

Our present house, purchased in 1977, had a front garden consisting of a small half circle of shrubbery between two sets of gateposts at the front of the property, and a strip of soil about three feet wide against the house at the back of the driveway. The remainder of the area was covered with concrete and total dimensions, up to the paths which continue along both sides of the house, is approximately 34 feet wide by 23 feet deep. The concrete was in four strips running from front to back, defining a path at each side, with the main area between the paths laid in two large unbroken sections. A fairly boring front garden but with the benefit of low maintenance; until that is, the four strips of concrete gradually settled, cracked, sagged, and began breaking up in places

As the deterioration became more noticable, passing builders with unused tarmac on the back of their lorries were tending to stop by with an offer to transform our decrepit parking area 'At a very reasonable price'.

"Cowboys!" I told Jill, "I could re-lay our drive at half the cost if only I had a cement mixer." This was a very serious error - how many people are given a cement mixer for their birthday present?