I've been threatening to begin the Grotto in the garden for at least 18 months, to the extent that people began to smile in an 'understanding' way whenever the subject came up. But it is now begun as this photograph proves! Digging the hollow out into the bank at the top of the garden is more spadework than I've done in more than two decades, I think. The soil here is very sandy and very compacted, which didn't make things particularly easy. I have had no experience of mixing concrete since watching my Dad lay the crazy paving outside the house when I must have been about 10, and doing so for myself I was astonished by the way gallons of cement, sand and gravel seemed to shrivel into about a cupful on the addition of water (it may have been mortar he was mixing, I suppose). Anyway, the base slabs and the rubble base of the walls are now laid and as soon as there is time - tomorrow, perhaps - I will add a bit more. It won't be an extensive grotto - just big enough to sit in - and I suspect it will require a brick roof before being ringed with proper stone around the mouth to give it the correct look.How long all this will actually take is anyone's guess.
Clay soil is far harder to dig, I promise you!!
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I did think about that and suspect you're right! It's actually going to require a basically brick construction as the rubble isn't going to work - it's too irregular to stack in any remotely safe manner! When I came to dismantle what little I'd done the bits around the base came out of the concrete worryingly easily. Many more bags of mortar required (as well as bricks).
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