Ordinarily, I would get the ready-mix boys in with their truck to get the job done quickly and smartly. Unfortunately, this area is less than the required area for a good price so, Scrooge that I am, I decided to do it myself and save a few bob.
Now, when I say "do it myself", I really mean I'd get the young and fit members of the family in while I supervised. Little did I know they were wise to my motives and let it be known they expected a full contribution from yours truly.
The challenge laid down, I could do little else than accept and for the past few days it has been a pretty testing time physically as we have dug out a whole load of soil, carted it off to a trailer, driven the trailer to my mate's dumping ground and shovelled it all off, and then gone back and done it all over again.
And again. And again. And maybe even again. I think. I'm so tired I can't remember.
And just when I thought my aching muscles were developing muscles of their own, we started to think about concreting.
We actually had a borrowed old concrete mixer lined up but the blasted thing would not start.
Typically, the guy I'd borrowed it off, who never ever goes away at this time of year, was holidaying like normal people for a change and had packed his intimate knowledge of its workings along with his Speedos.
So we opted to suck it up and mix the concrete ourselves.
Three currently tired and aching bodies suggest that may have been a mistake and we should have sold a kidney or something and gone and hired one.
But, as I say, we didn't and it was one very exhausted trio who sat round the campfire, er, I mean the aircon unit, at the end of the project wondering what the hell we'd done all that hard work for.
I mean, I doubt it will add $10 in value to the property when it goes to the market, let alone $10,000 as suggested by the all-powerful one when she suggested/demanded/ordered it be done.
Apparently, the next Woman of the House would have had a similar opinion about the aforementioned messy area out the back, she said. I'm not sure how Mrs P knows that but I gather all women are on the same wavelength. They must learn it in school or something.
Be warned, you blokes. That Man area out the back where you keep your odd lengths of wood and all that other leftover stuff you know you will definitely require one day may not register as "practical" in the female psyche.
Especially if you can see it clearly from the back bedroom where she's just put in those new curtains.
But I digress.
So, here we are. All three of us. Completely knackered.
All we want is a good sleep.
Unfortunately, Baby Poppy has other ideas.
She has decided tonight is the night she's going to give her 7-month-old lungs a real good try out.
I'm no expert but I'd suggest after a long night of full-on screaming they are working just fine. Either that or Jimmy Barnes, Pavarotti, and AC/DC have just held a rather loud joint concert in our spare bedroom.
Obviously, the amount of screaming and the volume led to some concern among the medical experts in the family and after a whole night of ups and downs, the word "hospital" was mentioned.
It was about this time, just as the sun was coming up, Baby Poppy drifted off into a deep, deep sleep without a care in the world.
Coincidentally, about the same time I found myself shuffling from our bedroom to the lounge in one of those "too tired to sleep" episodes, the echo of baby screams still reverberating in my eardrums.
Once in the lounge, I found No 1 Son and Builder Boy, both looking tired and similarly worse for wear.
To perk us up I stuck the jug on. A good cup of coffee would help. I was hoping we weren't out of milk as always seems to be the way. We weren't, thank goodness. There it was in the little jar we used when we needed to make space and get rid of the half-empty large container.
Within 10 minutes we three weary souls were sitting there sipping the elixir of life when Poppy's mum, the Boomerang Child, appeared, looking equally exhausted.
It has to be said she was very apologetic we had been kept awake all night but she would try her best to settle Poppy for the day with a good feed as soon as she woke.
Luckily, she'd expressed plenty of breast milk the day before, she said.
Or at least she thought she had.
She was sure there had been much more in the little jar she had used to store it in last night but then again, maybe not. She was very tired after all.
