Some things are never as straightforward as you imagine. My Mistress has been visualising her summerhouse in place. She has worked out which one she wants. She has staked out the ground to be certain it will work. There was one very small point that she was overlooking. Our garden is on a hill. Whichever way you go, it slopes down. In our village there is a High Farm and a Low Farm and we love next door to High Farm. We did joke we could have called our house ‘Windy Ridge’. No part of our garden is level. Oh so the ground that my Mistress has staked out isn’t too lumpy, but does she really want her summerhouse floor sloping down by around a foot? No, well that was what she concluded with the nice man who called round yesterday as well. He then started to ask about whether the base should be cement or hardcore. Basically the choice boils down to whether we want a lorry driving over our nice new patio and lawn or whether we want it done by manual labour. You should have seen the look on her face when he suggested a lorry could drive over the new lawn. That would be the lawn she has been carefully watering for the last few weeks and which Shadow and I get told off for peeing on. I am waiting for the verdict of what is going to happen next. There appear to be three options. Firstly she could do without the summerhouse she’s been dreaming of for the last few months. Secondly she could take a deep breath and pay the nice man to do al the hard work and thirdly she could get out her little shovel and start digging. And before she asks, I am not, I repeat not helping either with the digging or acting as the cart-dog for the wheelbarrow.