NICKY FURNISS
2020 has been the year of the wall. And when you read “wall” imagine the theme song from The NeverEnding Story playing in the background.
The saga of our wall started about five years ago when we noticed that the steep bank behind our house was quite waterlogged. Then the water started to run in a mini rivulet down our driveway. We did some investigating, and established that there had to be a municipal leak somewhere above us. We called the municipality. They refused to take responsibility. We had the water tested to prove it was municipal.They still refused to do anything about it.We spent a pretty penny putting in a large French drain at the top our property, and then, just as we finished it, the municipality declared that there was a leak and fixed it!
The damage had already been done though, and with the first rain of the season, our waterlogged bank turned into a landslide. Thankfully, it didn’t do much damage to the house, and we hoped that with the leak finally fixed it would dry out and stabilise itself. And then, last year, we had another mini landslide – this time on the other side, behind the garage, and we realised we could leave it no longer.
In January, we combined our tax rebates and bought 400 blocks from Corobrik, and enlisted the help of a contractor friend to oversee the building of a retaining wall. In February, the heavy machinery arrived to gently contour the bank in preparation for the blocks to go in. Day 1 was exciting, Day 2 a revelation, and on Day 3 the TLB operator just needed to dig the foundations and shave a little more off the bank. He decided to have some fun doing a little undercutting though, so on Day 4 we woke up to a semi-collapsed bank!
Heavy rain, and stressed nerves, put paid to any further work for February and early March, and then we got the TLB back to clear out the fallen soil. That done, we arranged for the builders to come in on the Monday – which just so happened to be the Monday after lockdown was announced.“We can still get a bit done, though,” we thought… until, just before work started, half the bank collapsed again! I burst into tears, and we decided to leave the soil in place to support the rest of the bank during lockdown. And so the collapsed bank sat for three months – and I tried to pretend it wasn’t there.
In early July, the TLB returned and I prayed fervently for two weeks that the bank would hold long enough for enough of a wall to be built to support it. It held, and our wall slowly went up. We got to 2.5 m and asked Corobrik to deliver the second half of our blocks.Their response:“We’ve run out of stock. We can only deliver in two weeks.” We shouted, we pleaded, and we negotiated, all to no avail. In the end – with our bank still precariously sheer – we phoned around and got 11 blocks from this hardware store, and 50 from that one, and continued to build for as long as possible until we ran out of blocks again. And then we waited, and prayed, that the bank would hold.
As I write this it is the end of September – and after months of delivery delays, builder’s delays, concrete shortages, and some odd weather – the builders finally announced this week, that the wall was finished! I thought I would be more excited about it, but – as builders do – there is still a lot of cleaning up and finishing off to do. Plus, then, there is the matter of landscaping the top of our 5.5 m high wall and securing the last 2 m or so of bank with grass, not to mention planting in between the blocks to soften this behemoth of a structure a bit.At this rate, I am hoping I can say we’ve finished the wall by Christmas!
As far as building projects go, a retaining wall is possibly the least exciting, and at times it feels that we are just throwing much needed money into a dark hole. I would rather have had a working oven, or finally gotten rid of the 70s linoleum in our bathroom, but instead I guess we now have peace of mind.
While 2020 has been the year of the wall for us, I also think it’s apt for the way the year has turned out. Our wall is all about strength and support, and this year we have all had to step back, take stock, and learn how to find strength in ourselves and in the support of others. It’s not fun, or pretty, or exciting, but it’s a solid base from which to move on from, and when life finally returns to some semblance of normality, we can have our adventures and fun, knowing we have a solid frame – figuratively, as well as literally – to support us.