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This is just getting ridiculous now. Don't you know you're suppposed to have disaster stories, compromises, rogue workers, and budget failures? 😉 You and you're wife must be so happy and proud - deservedly so; you've done an amazing job. Love the terraces, and as @MikeSharp01 notes, we at least deserve an update once the planting has settled in, just so we can be a little more jealous than we already are. 🤣 Love it! ❤️

Not a blog, but a few words would be interesting. Then in a year you can reflect on those notes and realise everything is fine really.

Building control were fine with me using grano dust as the top layer. So they should be. Sand is often used far too thick to overcome poor levelling of the sub-base. Then it picks up footprints and other shapes which the concrete has to drag along if it shrinks while curing. This is textbook stuff apart from a couple of things which reduce your mark to 99%. Well done. 🏆

Some of the trees will grow quite high but they are quite well spaced out so I am sure we'll be seeing the sunsets for as long as we're around. None of them are fruit trees - apples in particular cause havoc for mowing, especially with a robot mower which is what we have. So they are what I would call ornamental park trees: maple, willow, oak, chestnut, birches, elder, hornbeam, ginkgo, etc. - quite a mixture. Mrs P. tells me we do plan to have some fan-trained fruit trees along a south-west facing fence were about to put up on one part of our boundary. Who knew, eh?

Lovely looking house and a great job, well done!

How high will these new trees grow? You won't be seeing that sunset for ever. Are they fruit trees or other? May I say it all looks great, but when I first saw your pic of the kerbs going in on 1/2m of concrete base, it made me think of a bobsleigh run. all rather splendid now.

Love this. Can we have a final final blog in three months with all the snags and things you have changed? Mind you, given the story of this blog series, I expect everything will have been perfect!

Really smart. Lots of stone surfaces to absorb heat during the day and radiate it back out in the evening too. Really nicely done.

Looking absolutely lovely, and yes lots of planting opportunities

Lovely european feel to that - Bravo

Wow - that's some landscaping - its been so long since one has seen so many terraces in a design- looks great and once it has grown in it will look amazing. Until the epilogue then.....

We cover the cavities because we put the insulation sheets in every 4 rows and don't want them to get soaked.

I am glad to hear of your recovery, and well done with picking up your build again. I think the state of the NHS is a worry to us all, and ever more so as we get older. Where it is all going awry seems impossible for anyone to understand or fix. I will say that the very elderly do seem to get a huge attention from the NHS. We find ourselves ferrying nearly 90's relatives to multiple appointments every single week. A neighbour is 102 now. I presume they did explain what the problem was and explain their decisions to keep sending you away again. I am interested to see how you cover your cavities as you go. Our builders had zero interest in ever covering anything that was built. Oh the happy times (not) we spent going up scaffolding to protect things. Tarpaulins, DPM rolls, buckets, mops, water pump, sand bags at 6am was bloody miserable.

Really enjoying your blog. You're clearly doing a great job of the project management. I hesitate to ask, as you already have enough on your plate, but I'd be very interested if at some point when you have a minute to spare (🤣) if you shared some of your knowledge on how to do that well, what tools you use etc.