Paving the way ahead

While others can build extensions and turn the loft into a bedroom, I am physically unable to knock a nail in straight.

For every blow to the head of the nail, there is another to the ball of my thumb, so when it comes to building things, I leave it to Mrs Hextol, who can mix concrete and lay bricks with as much aplomb as she makes cakes and does the ironing.

However, it is surprising what I can find to turn my hand to these days, as retirement continues to weigh heavily on my shoulders.

Many years ago, not long after leaving school, number two son took it upon himself to build a smart new path at Hextol Towers, because the old concrete one was starting to bear an uncanny resemblance to Manuel Noriega’s face.

He skilfully laid a patchwork of block paving over the pockmarked path, and it looked so posh the next door neighbours asked him if he could do one for them too.

My contribution was passing him the bricks and keeping an eye on the Stihl saw he was using to cut the blocks to the correct size.

As a avid jigsaw puzzle fan, I was fascinated to see how the blocks interlocked in an intriguing pattern, and the path has done sterling service for over a quarter of a century.

However, Hextol Towers is built on a hill, and it recently became apparent that the force of gravity was sucking the blocks slowly down the slope.

The gaps between the blocks used to be cigarette paper thin, but recently, it would have been possible to insert a Romeo y Juileta Churchill cigar into some of them, complete with aluminium tube.

I decided to bridge that gap with a couple of bags of the finest jointing sand, which I was assured would plug the gaps and seal the footpath for many more years to come.

I briskly brushed it in, and was a little surprised when a bit of a breeze got up and briskly whisked it all out again.

I applied more when the wind had dropped, but there was so much sand in the garden, I half expected to see a couple of Kalahari bushmen pointing their poisoned arrows in my direction.

The only poisoned barbs came from Mrs Hextol, who dubbed my efforts as frankly pathetic – a sentiment with which I had to agree.

So I therefore decided to turn the clock back and re-lay the affected sections of the path, just as I had seen my son do all those years ago.

I hunted out my screwdriver, chisel and my favourite tool of all time, a rubber hammer.

(I at first refused to believe such a clearly useless tool existed, until my son demonstrated that they were the very thing to force paving blocks into place without chipping them).

I soon established that the cause of the collapse was the shifting of the kerbs supposed to keep the blocks in place.

With a stroke of genius, I remembered a hoard of big orange plastic tent pegs in a corner of the garage, and established that they were the very thing to force the kerbs back into place and restore a sense of orderliness to the path.

To my total surprise, and Mrs Hextol’s astonishment, my theory worked a treat, and by the end of the afternoon, I had worked my way along the entire path, shoring up the kerbs with tent pegs, and slotting in the bricks as snugly as they had been before the Millennium.

Ants, centipedes and woodlice scattered in consternation as I plied my rubber hammer with vigour on their former homes – until it was time to lay the final kerb against the front step.

The kerb was about a quarter of an inch too long for the available gap, and although I brayed it so hard with the rubber hammer the end flew off and hit me on the head, it would not go in.

Hearing my earthy language, Mrs Hextol came out, dusting her hands on her pinny, and declared: “I could have told you that would happen – you started from the wrong end.”

I had the entire line of kerbs to re-lay and the blocks to realign, and sure enough, when I came to lay the last one, it slotted in as neatly as a bum on a pot.

I am now conducting guiding tours of the Path That Hextol Laid ...