Measuring Up
Today Yvonne came round to measure up the garden ready for drawing up her plan. I have tried to measure the garden before, and it is not easy, even when there is nothing in it to get in the way. I watched Yvonne, in between making her cups of tea, and learnt the following:
(1) You need a long tape measure.
(2) In fact, you need more than one tape measure. Three is good. Lay one of them along an edge you know is straight, like along the house wall, and use the others to make measurements at right angles to that.
(3) Do not write down all the measurements on a piece of plain paper, because when you get home, you will find that something doesn’t match up. Draw the plan as you go along using a piece of graph paper.
(4) Allow lots of time. My garden is not a big one and is not a complicated shape, but it took Yvonne two and a half hours.
(5) Do not use a brown pencil to write with because when you drop it in the undergrowth you will have no chance of finding it again.