A Singaporean In Australia

Feeling bad for my visitors, who had to walk on dirt to my door, I placed some pavers in front for them to play hopscotch. They ended up more like wading ducks but all of them still looked please when they finally made it past the River of Lava to Castle Safety. All except one.

By that time, Duchess of the Brook was heavily pregnant. (Now she is supremely heavily pregnant) So I understood that hopscotch did not appeal to her. Initially, it wasn't in my plans to do anything outside the house. Obviously, anything inside the house was a higher priority. The place had to be made functional before the external area should be looked into, with the exception of the laundry area of course. However, I might have to make another exception because if pregnant guests started to trip all over the place, lives might be at stake.

Since safety is #1, I had to attempt another paving project. One Saturday night, I decided I had the energy to do something and so I did. Just the week before, Steph painstakingly made two trips between our places to offload his stash of pavers in my garage. There was about 300 pieces of them for me to use. The problem was, they were of a higher quality than mine. So I couldn't mix them up together to pave up larger areas. However, I could use some for a location such as the front walk way. The rougher surface of Steph's premium pavers would also provide a higher co-efficient of friction for wobbly pregnant women who might come that way. There would not be any valid reason to complain thereafter.

In less than 1 hour, I was able to set up the lines, smooth out the sand, as well as laying the outline of the first colour. I was mighty pleased. There was a marked improvement ever since I did my first temporary paving at the garage link. Still, I couldn't do any odd shapes for this pavement. Chiseling these were out of question because these were right in front of the house. As sloppy as I might be, I refused to do a bad job at the front of my house. That was the last frontier, as far as how I was willing to let my pride down. I wanted to do the best walk way to the front entrance on the entire street.

I was lucky enough to be able to place all the pavers from edge to edge without the need to cut any pavers, other than 1 small piece at the drain pipe cover. I promised myself I would sort those problematic edges once and for all when I could. The kids were already asleep as I was still out there in the dark, assisting by only a light bulb in the veranda and my trusty hammer. Jen would come out occasionally to give her opinions and encouragement. By the next morning, it looked pretty good. I thought I had completed the job until Stephen reminded me I should run a conduit under the pavement for future reticulation purpose. Damn!

Fortunately, I found a conduit lying somewhere in a skip bin nearby and I could use it to stand work immediately. That probably saved me $10-20 if I were to buy a new conduit somewhere. I did the final adjustments of the pavers before smothering them in fine, white, cleaned sand (free but don't ask). The final outcome was pretty good.

To my annoyance, I didn't see any pregnant ladies stepping on it ever since. However, I was glad I did that. It was a great, great feeling walking through that every day I come back from work. I walked along the entire street spying on the neighbours' front pavement. Indeed, I had the best one.