DumbStick

Just ordered some ladders and a 25m Hozelock hose reel thingy, as well as some tiling. Going to have to buy them anyway, so might as well save a few extra yen.

But I think the audience are genuinely surprised at the features being described Tubby.

His voice really is hugely irritating!

Looking forward. To make up for this year, next year will be a record breaker!

Congrats!

I think there's a few people in my office who really shouldn't be here at the moment.

I like that film. I should look more what is on BS.

Haha that reminds me very much of the experince I had with my cashback for internet connection. I had to receive a hikari tv box only to instantly return it, after opening the box to make it look like I had used it of course. Complete waste of time, effort, delivery, opened box etc. Madness. But it was the loops I had to jump through to get my cash.

Understood!

Aren't Nagano farmers used to some snow? Not as if it's Kyushu.

OK met with garden guy again. We didn't argue or bad feeling or anything, but I pushed on a few price points and realised that he wasn't able/willing to move more as I tried to cost cut. He was literally out of the door at one point with a finality about it. I had to bring him back to try and get things back on course. Even explained how he actually missed a few things off the initial estimate that he felt he could not put back on, and so it should have been more. On checking, he was right. So in a way I feel better now knowing that he's not just inflating his charges for me and

Great story

Bit of jealousy?!

Do you walk up stairs or is there a lift?

The pottering around myself and doing it bit by bit is just not for me, snowdude. I want it done, to be enjoyed from now, and then I'm happy doing a certain amount of maintain. Will get back to the process this week.

Yeah I'm sure it's better than what I think when I hear 'sand'. But this is my problem - I don't know all this stuff in English, never mind Japanese. I just want very good quality stuff that will grow flowers and shrubs well. Not just 'barely good enough'. Simpleton I know. I found this http://www.fujinokensetsu.co.jp/j_tuchi.htm My friend seemed to be saying this was ok for under a lawn area, but flower beds would prefer an upgrade on that. I'm leaving it for a few days, a bit fed up.

You shouldn't have been walking round naked, Mick.

Good question and one that I have only latched onto now. This guy is saying that mostly yamasuna 山砂　mixed with bark compost and peat moss (?) is 'good enough'for flower beds. I kind of think the sound of 'sand' is... well, it doesn't sound go good does it. My Japanese friend who does gardening is telling me that kuro soil would be much better. I get the feeling it is 'good enough' to keep the costs down but if I'm going to the trouble of doing a garden, I want better than 'good enough'. I just spoke with him and he was going on about how if I wanted to use different soil we could do

He has been. Actually I am much more positive now, it seems I had misunderstood a few aspects of things. And he came with a revised total price down and also offered to throw in some trees and conifers at the new price after some negotiating and make some adjustments which are actually additional costs for him. While the brick part of the quote is still very expensive, I think I need to just think of the total cost rather than zoom in on that as he wasn't for budging on that one part much. Need to also think about how much time and work would be involved if I did try and do it all mysel

Tomorrow he comes here and will be up for a frosty reception. If he's not up for lots of flexibility, he might as well go home quickly. In other news, I got samples of the artificial grass today from 3 companies. Some of them are horrible horrible. Not as bad as that roll in the thread here but still very bad indeed. But a few of them are pretty good first impressions. Looks like real grass.

I was hoping they would have realised I'm not going to accept silly prices, but obviously not. All that work he has done, looking like it will have been wasted by his pricing colleague being stupid on prices. I suppose the good thing is that I've now got a fairly detailed outline of a plan/idea that I like now though, along with the materials etc that I want used.

OK worst fears imagined. Got the quotation. Very expensive. On trying to get details squeezed out, turns out I am being told that the bricklayer does on average 45 bricks in one day. These are normal bricks. The reason it is that is because apparently there's cement, base and measuring to do too... who'd have thought such a thing! I just gave him a clear (but controlled) piece of my mind, I think he was as shocked as I was pissed off. He's due to come on Thursday to discuss it - I told him that unless there's some real changes, this will not be happening. Problem is, e

Hmm the mossy look in your photo there (for want of a better word) wouldn't fit our ideas, not sure I like that. This is one of the big concerns of real grass. Apart from that fact it's a lot of work, and often doesn't seem to look amazing, there will be times when we won't be there. And it will probably die. Obviously not good!

I wonder that too. Though they kind of lose you quickly when they give you crazy over-inflated numbers that are borderline insulting. You'd think they would be happy to get a decent size job and want the business so be a bit flexible. Not asking them to take a loss, just don't rip off my arm. I am due to get our quotation at long last today or tomorrow. We'll see if he has taken in that there'll be no accepting silly numbers.