I'm not in the UK, but the last few days have been miserable, I've been sick at my stomach and had to keep a trash can next to the bed..

Pretty terrible, to be honest. The upstairs neighbour's toilet broke and all the water came through my living room roof.

Yea right, a crazy chain of events. I'm all moved in, now its just a case of waiting for the bone to heal so I can get back to my default.

Stressful as fuck. Messed up slightly at work but over catastrophised it in my head which just made it all worse.

I saw The Black Hole at the cinema when it came out and loved it. To the extent that I can still recall VINCENT stood for ‘Vital Information Necessary CENTralised’.

Oh dear! What a nightmare week! Have you got any help with the moving?

Is the broken foot and ending up in a prison cell related?

Broke my foot and embarrassed myself while drunk, woke up in a police cell and missed a day of work last week, so this week I feel I can't complain but I will anyway, due to the broken foot, I am currently wearing a medical boot, a large chunk of plastic, the foot is fine but this thing has made walking a living hell. Then to top it off I'm moving house tomorrow 😬😬 And the drunken embarrassment thing, that's been haunting my dreams (literally)

A structural engineer would want to box my ears for this, but honestly...If it's a freebie like that I'd be tempted to just put down a couple of courses of concrete blocks, then mount it on that!

Though I guess a trench, MOT, and C10 is only a weekend's worth with a spade and a mixer.

Good luck with clearing up the brainfog... I'm in there too. Somewhere.

If it's the same as us, you might have contract paint which is moisture absorbant... (I'm an expert now because a professsional told me a few things)

So, it might be just a wipe down and need "proper" paint

But, yeah, get the good stuff.

Oh, and don't bother with odourless paint, it's worse because of the chemicals added to remove the smell. So you breathe in more of it...

Nothing yet, but I have my response pre-selected

Hey if it's any consolation I'm sure they'll make encouraging comments like "An AI would have done this already by now", or "please use an LLM to speed up the transition, have you heard of co-pilot?"

Nothing like lighting a fire under your talent to make them mentally check out of a job they previously somewhat enjoyed

Halloumi is easy peasy, cheddar cheesy... Mergers are another story... When they brought me on they said "we really wanted to buy the engine of your team's output, and we're not looking to change anything about that."

Two months later and practically no aspect of my workflow has been left untouched. I'm rebuilding everything I do from scratch, almost eight years of experience calmly cast aside. Do things our way, end of story.

Hope yours goes more smoothly. 2026 seems to have an infinite appetite for chaos.

I had a secret holiday this week. No one knows except work and one family member. I'm slowly coming out of my brainfog despite doing nothing but sleeping more and catching up with TV series. Health-wise it's a downturn; there's only so much beef jerky and marmite crumpets a man should eat, but it's been glorious.

I plan to take more secret holidays this year. I love my family very much, but people make plans on your time and sometimes you just need a buffer.

Glad you survived the purge, I'm sensing one going on at a company I'm currently contracting for and everyone, bosses included, look tired and shell-shocked.

On the cheese front, I had a go at making my own halloumi and it was surprisingly quick and easy, and even looked and tasted like the the real stuff! I don't know what rennet actually is, but it seems to be the secret ingredient to everything

I hope you went for a zero VOC anti mould paint. They're expensive as hell but worth it from what I understand.

I'm currently fighting mould in the bedroom. I have no idea where it's coming from, but I suspect it's to do with the chimney stack ventillator, and my neighbours dodgy ensuite-shower

Nice one, friend.

Nothing but respect for marathon runners. My running journey topped off at a half-marathon, and I know from friends and colleagues that going for the full marathon isn't just "double the training and distance", it's far more involved than that

Good luck, remember to rest, and let us know when you nail the 26.2!

Good luck and godspeed, my Brittanic friend

TBH it's kinda a long term thing - some friends moved into a house with this greenhouse in... some panes were missing, some broken and with 2 small kids they were going to scrap it.

I, stupidly, said that we'd take it off their hands, so they painstakingly dismantled it, I took it away and put it back together again.

And it's stood, with no glass in, at 2 or 3 (or 4?) different locations around the garden whilst we worked out the best place for it.... enough sun, but not too muxh, space for a patio, etc, etc... Goldilocks kinda thing.

The plan is to grow whatever we can in there, considering that clay soil is really good for nutrition - if you can get plants out of the water... so... put the greenhouse on the soil, dig out a small path in the middle for the walkway, which banks up the soil either side giving some natural drainage outside.

Rainwater collection outside with several smallish containers linked together (rsther than 1 large waterbutt) to create a wall of heat stored from the sun during the day which gently heats during the night.

And maybe an automatic window opener for the 3 days of summer we get.

That's the plan...

For me, in clay soil with standing water for ~6 months of the year, I'd not want a wooden greenhouse... unless it's on stilts.

Thank you for staying in touch! I've yet to try your suggestion yet, though I sent my fantastic other half to get some wax from a local heath foods store so it's on my list.

At the moment, I've learned to ease flare-ups by pressing inwards on the tooth, holding it there for a minute or two, and taking a few open mouth breaths to even out the temperature, and the pain seems to go away for a bit!

I'll let you know if I have to break out the bumbley boi cure!

Was thinking about this, how're you going?

Also, regarding not getting a straight answer out of anywhere...Honestly, if you got 4 builders to make plans, you wouldn't get a consensus.
Unless you go down the path of putting down extension grade foundations (taking into account nearby trees, slope, clay type), filling a nice wide trench with MOT and concrete is going to be fine for a greenhouse.

What are the greenhouse plans, out of curiosity? I've always fancied building a wooden one.

Good idea on the edging. I won't ignore the advice from a windy Scot!

Yep, correct, the idea is to plant in the soil...

I currently have a square trench ready to go, well... it was late last summer, niw it's a swimming pool for various small animals (yes... they can escape... it's not a death trap before someone complains)

I wasn't thinking about things like compacted gravel / MOT, but to be fair that's not a bad shout. Thanks

Ah, yes, I see I'm talking to professional peepers!. I once did a picnic at a lake and we had a popup changing room with a bucket! I get you!