On the roof, in the garden and in the house

There were five monkeys in the house this morning; they ate the bread, stole the eggs and then ate Claire's beans in the kitchen garden. They are brazen and only chasing them with a stick drives them away.

I'm wondering about how to construct the Suikinkitsu overflow pool without making a big 'thing' of it and mocked-up a small 'Yin' pool lined with black pebbles that would surrounded with shady ferns. I spent time this morning breaking up old clay to puddle the hole, but black polythene maybe safer.

The chickens lay eggs in this giant plant pot- sadly the monkeys got this morning's offerings

There's quite a lot of work to do reconstructing the garden wall but we located the flights and numbers of steps with the diviners.

The oil drum that will form the lining of the hole has been cut to size and treated and after lunch George mixed concrete to line the base of the suikinkitsu- very hard work!

We have decided against green bamboo for the standpipe and are using some driftwood bamboo which is grey and well seasoned. It looks very good against the stone basin and it split open easily to accommodate the copper stand pipe.

The bamboo stand-pipe in position

Home-made Pizza for supper.

Cooked in a frying pan and then grilled. Delicious.