Garage... ish.

When the snows come, my car or cars have to be dug out before hitting the road. This is a laborious process that results in frostbitten fingers, soggy clothing, much hollering of expletive deleteds and, more often than not, a crippling sense of failure as one admits defeat and returns indoors without having got anywhere near achieving vehicular movement. When it snows up these here parts it's best to stay indoors and forget about driving anywhere, unless, of course, one has a garage or car port. Then, at least, it's that bit easier to hop into the car and get it moving. Er, after firstly clearing the snow from the pathway to the road (the road is generally clear thanks to the efforts of the council workers). A pic of what I'm on about...

Having endured this state of affairs for about ten winters, I eventually got planning permission to build a car port. I would have preferred a garage but, due to the house being within spitting distance of the church, we were advised that such a structure may be considered an offensive eyesore to churchgoers and that a simple lean-to thingy would be more likely to be approved by the powers that be. However, it was stipulated that the structure had to be wooden and constructed in a traditional way. I was advised that the chap to build the thing would be Pierre, the local woodman and brother of neighbour Christian. To cut a long story short, his estimate was okayed and he eventually started work on building the thing. A bit later it was almost finished just as the first snows arrived. A couple of weeks ago Pierre finished the job by putting up the guttering. Job well done. We haven't yet had the thing approved by whoever has to approve these thingies, but I remain optimistic despite the somewhat less than visually pleasing cement supports that were a late addition in order to solve the problem of building on a slope.