We have just returned from a wonderful weeks respite aboard Thomson Majesty on a non-stop tour of Corfu, Sicily, Naples, Rome, Sorrento, Malta, Gozo and Pompeii. It was hot! Whilst Alex took architectural inspiration from The Colisseum, I sweated, melted and panted my way around one of the most impressive cities on Earth. Nevertheless, the week was a welcome break from the horrors of trench warfare in muddy Nuneaton.
We returned refreshed, inspired and peeling, ready to tackle the first course of bricks with energy and zest. However, it soon appeared that whilst we had been wilting in 38 degree Italian heat, England had sagged under several inches of torrential rainfall. This had returned our 3/4 filled trenches to an aqueous state and enthusiasm gave way to 'bugger it- let's just have a swimming pool' mentality. Grand aspirations for Warwickshire's first ampitheatre and Patheon dimmed, and the possibilities for Nuneaton's own Trevi Fountain seemed more likely.
From then on, we have been playing the waiting game. This is punctuated by an occasional frenzied dash into the garden to drop bricks into the water whenever there is a gap in the rain, a modern variation of the three coins in the fountain phenomenon. Meanwhile, my new chimnea smokes forbodingly at the bottom of the garden, heralding a new industrial age when Pimms under a parasol seems a far more tempting way of spending a summer evening than syphoning muddy trenchwater through a straw.
I leave you now to dash onto the driveway and lie prostrate in our aged trailer, as Alex attempts to measure it's length and breadth and work out whether we can transport Roman arches from Hinckley in it. Are we the only couple in England who are attempting a building project without actually owning a tape measure? I struggle to sit up in the trailer to answer my neighbour's query. Carpe Diem! I cry. (As I spot a fish swimming in our trenches)
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