Houston we have a .......

Yes you've guessed it ..... a problem!

Despite waking up on Saturday morning to find that the sore throat and sniffle i'd had for a couple of days had turned into a full blown cold, which in turn turned me into a bear with an extremely sorehead, i remained quite up beat at the prospect of finally getting started with the excavation of the new pond. The skip arrived on Friday and was duly placed on the drive, albeit in slightly the wrong place making it difficult for us to access the flap at the front of the skip. Although Wifey had been advised that a couple of "burly" men should be able to move it .... yeh right!

The crisp morning air was just beginning to make its way through to the sinuses when truck delivering the digger pulled up. When they said "first thing in the morning" they weren't exaggerating. The driver made operation of the digger look like child's play but we still took him up on his offer of giving us a crash course (minus the crash we hoped). After absorbing as many levers, sticks & switches as we could at warp speed, Wifey enquired if the driver would kindly maneuver the digger round the back for us instead of us spending the morning negotiating the first garden gate, then the afternoon the second gate. His driving skills with the digger were magnificent, however he was no magician as it soon became obvious that unless he could conjure up a miracle there was no way the digger was going through the gateway. After a quick phone call to the office and confirmation to them of the gate widths, it transpires that they had actually sent the wrong digger to us. Instead of a micro digger which would have whizzed through the gateways, they had actually sent a mini digger which was too big.

The mini digger was duly maneuvered back on to the truck and whisked away leaving yours truly feeling now fully deflated due to cold symptoms and without the prospect of getting the new pond excavation started.

This feeling didn't last long as we soon turned our attention to the quarantine system. Plans were drawn up quickly, measurements checked, double checked and checked again just to be on the safe side, quickly followed by concrete blocks being positioned, a 3" Kockney Koi bottom drain being fitted along with 3" solvent weld pipework connected with an Evolution Aqua Eazy Connector. As the rodent on the TV states .... "Simples"!

We soon had a framework up surrounding the tank to enable us to box the insulation in and also to make it more aesthetically pleasing. One roll of insulation and approximately 50 wood boards later and things were looking up again. We couldn't complete plumbing in the gravity fed Nexus Eazy Pod coupled with a Superfish 5000 pond pump and Electro pond heater as we were a couple of connections short. However this will be soon rectified following a visit to A19 Koi & Pond Supplies. Thanks to Paul for all his help, understanding and advice so far ... as i'm sure they'll be more to come!