I had some work tops left over from our old place, so I decided to make a kitchen in the garden. Here is a brief summary, but there are lots more pictures on Flickr.

Planning it out took quite a bit of time. I had to work with the space I had and the worktop was already cut to a size, so getting the plan right was important.

Once I knew where everything was going I laid the blocks in post-crete and got them all level with a spirit level.

Once that was done then it should have been pretty easy to build it up to height. I had never worked with mortar before so I learnt a lot and got a lot better as I tried more things.

Ok so there was a bit of a complication. The breeze blocks didn’t stick to each other.

Years of building jumps made me realise that the problem was that both surfaces were too smooth so the mortar didn’t bind to them. I made the surfaces textured and they stuck a lot better.

Also it’s important to make the surfaces wet I think.

So then it all went up much easier. Cleared the ground.

Lick of paint

Stick the tops on.

Stop for a break (this actually took a few weeks in total)

Now on with the bbq/oven thing/

Finishing touches

Testing the oven

All done

Finished

Time to use it…

Yummy

Works pretty well.

The internet is changing. Again. These days there really doesn’t seem to be much of a need for a “webiste” any more. People interact online in so many different ways and it gets ever more complicated. Some people try to integrate this all into one site, which is really good, but it’s a lot of work to bring everything together and make it all work well. It’s also a never ending job as APIs change and new networks keep appearing.

I sort of feel like this site has served its function for me, and I don’t see much of a use for it any more (hence the number of updates I guess). I want to keep it here for posterity, but I have changed the homepage to reflect better the huge amount of other places I do things now. I hope it makes sense.

I guess the thing is I don’t have the time or the motivation to build a massive complicated and personalised system, when there are better free things out there, so I’ll just be using them now, and this is just a way of cross referencing them. A starting point. Isn’t the internet amazing?