I have not staged this photo in any way – in fact as I type I’m thinking why didn’t I drag them into the sun to get my shot but this – this is real life! It’s obviously a wheelbarrow and a spade but what’s the significance? Well they are where they were put to hose them both down to remove the concrete from both before it hardened. I must say I wouldn’t normally use my best border spade for a building job but after a day at work and discovering my workman’s spade was shut away in the shed and this was to hand, well, it was just irresistible.

Yep – we’ve had the concrete mixer out again tonight and made three more paving slabs…although what I will say is that we’ll call these the first! (The ones that we turned out yesterday were bubbly on the surface and I also was unhappy with their colour – too mid grey for me - mid grey being only marginally up the scale of home awfulness than beige!) The job took 50 minutes including getting all of the ingredients and tools out and putting them all away again afterwards. In about a month, assuming we've cracked the bubble issue, we'll have enough slabs to make our patio!

The only problem is that I now have hands that are stained black from the concrete dye. I look like a labourer from a building site – perhaps that’s why I can’t get a job as a teacher – perhaps I just don’t look the part?