The earth moved thanks to three men and a digger

Fiona thinks that when there’s a back-breaking job to be done, it is definitely time to call in the professionals to take the strain...

For someone with a shovel, it is a back-breaking job. Then a man has to do what a man has to do. The chief makes a start. He toils away for a morning. I watch admiringly and say encouraging things. Then it dawns on us both that doing it this way will take forever.

For it is quite a project. Twenty square metres of sodden soil and grass at the back of the house need to be removed and new drainage installed.

The project has been debated for two years and more. In the end, we decide to bring in the professionals.

As the week starts, three men duly arrive with a digger and a lorry-load of hardcore.

It creates great excitement on a boring Monday morning and all the toing and froing perks up the MacNaughties.

There are ’umans on machines to bark at. There are ’umans with wheelbarrows.

Great swathes of turf are being scooped up. These are being replaced with stone and gravel and thumped down with another heavy contraption.

The Norfolk Terrier cannot contain himself and rushes out to have a good yap at the digger. When it roars into life he quickly retreats inside the house, tail down.

When mid-morning comes, both dogs venture outside again. After all, there are biscuits on the workmen’s coffee tray and they live in hope.

This simple enjoyment could last all week, but in the end the team finishes it all in two days.

Job done. Even a few potholes in the drive can be filled with the left-over rubble.

What did we do before machines came along? Well, we did it by hand and it no doubt took forever.

Great cart horses pulled ploughs through fields. Clothes were laboriously cleaned on washboards and energetic housewives beat carpets to get rid of the dust.

I can remember my granny doing just that. She would hang her rugs over the washing line and give them a good old thrashing with what looked like a cane fan.

All that exercise worked a treat. Grandma lived until she was 96.

She had steadfastly refused to get a vacuum cleaner – and when the family finally presented her with one in her later years, it was not a success. The poor woman ended up tripping over the flex and broke her arm.

What did we do before machines came along? Well, we did it by hand and it no doubt took forever.

These days, thank goodness for the vacuum. Which, again, the MacNaughties hate, because it makes a nasty noise.

However, back to the new gravel – which I am watching like a hawk.

I do not know if you have the same problem, but where does all this small stone go? You put it down and a few months later it is wearing thin.

Do thieves come in and steal it in the night? Do hawks take off with it? Do midnight foxes scratch it into the long grass?

Yes, I am keeping an eagle eye on the gravel. But at least we can now walk out the back without getting wet feet.