Dave, can you dig it?

The summer has flown by, and after two-and-a-half weeks in glorious France, we were back meeting Dave the digger driver to start moving some earth. First was the foundation of the studio, which I carefully calculated to get the building down below the neighbour's hedge. A LOT of soil came out:

Then Dave found the main power supply to the house buried a few inches underground. Fortunately, he saw the warning tape and there were no bangs or sparks. This caused a re-think of the depth of excavation and I realised that tweaks to the roof design meant that we were probably low enough. The door sill will be a bit high, but we have enough material to raise the whole lawn up to it!

While we had Dave and the digger, we decided to strip and terrace the vegetable garden at the front, which yielded more pile of red Devon soil.  Dave is an artist with a machine and the terracing is looking great. He placed most of the turf he cut just behind the hedge to form the (well cushioned) base for the path at the bottom.