Chequer Court and Meeting House garden

Chequer Court from the north-east
Originally uploaded by davidjennings.

Another beautiful day, probably the warmest yet. Our friends Tim and Eileen came to stay last night, and we ate in an Italian restaurant in West Smithfield. This morning we walked round Hoxton, Shoreditch, the Barbican and St Luke's: I took several photos, all of which are in my 'EC1 and EC2' set.

A quiet day

Taking away the temporary fencing
Originally uploaded by davidjennings.

Aside from the loading of this temporary fencing onto a lorry, there didn't seem to be much going on on the site.

Is this spring?

Soil to go
Originally uploaded by davidjennings

A delivery
Originally uploaded by davidjennings.

As you can see from the last couple of days' photos, the sun is out. People are out in shirtsleeves, and there's a stong whiff of spring in the air. Less than two weeks ago there was snow on the ground.

This morning some of the old topsoil was loaded into a lorry and taken away (it seems a bit of shame that this good black earthy stuff is being replaced with a surface of pebbles and shale, but I'm sure there is some grander design at work). Then (lower picture) there was a delivery — still unpacked as I write.

Foundation for Meeting House Garden fence

Meeting House Garden
Originally uploaded by davidjennings.

I spoke too soon when I speculated about the last delivery of concrete for more was delivered today. It had to be ferried in from Banner Street, rather than coming over the Chequer Street fence as before.

First they filled in the trench that was dug yesterday. This is the foundation for the new railings that will follow this line. Then they filled in the foundations for the fence round the Meeting House garden, which you can see in this picture.

Finishing the fence

Finishing the fence
Originally uploaded by davidjennings.

The guys in this photo aren't the same 'yellow jackets' that I've referred to before: they're from fencing specialists Zaun and today they more or less completed the fence on three sides of the ball court. This now includes two doors/gates. One panel is missing, and presumably this gap will be used for bringing in the final surface of the court, plus any 'furniture' (ball hoops etc).

At the start of the day a lorry delivered three more piles of surface material. The distinctive brown pile was then ferried by the shovel-buggy down to the corner of the site where the Chequer Street entrance will be. And the digger dug a narrow trench leading to the Banner Street entrance, along the yellow line that was drawn yesterday and is partly visible in this photo.

Teamwork (and cats)

Teamwork
Originally uploaded by davidjennings.

This was the scene this morning as all hands, and all machines, were turned to levelling the surface of the playground. The headcount of regular staff has gone up from two in the first three weeks to three last week, for the concreting, and four today.

Later in the day I spotted the same black cat that I mentioned yesterday, and caught him/her in this zoom photo. Shortly afterwards another cat appeared, emerging from the underground car park at the far side of the site.

Railings

Railings
Originally uploaded by davidjennings.

In the bottom right of this picture are the windows of the room where the Weekly Meetings are held. Just before the end of the meeting, a black cat scuttled down by the window, then looked through to the room full of silent people and, appearing slightly alarmed, jumped back up again and disappeared.

In the bottom left you can see the old railings for the gardens which were removed in the first week.

I took a handful more photographs, including a close-up of the slide platform that I mentioned yesterday. You can see them all in my Quaker Gardens set on the Flickr site.