Finally got round to downloading these from the camera. They’re not the best ever photos, but it’s going to be the best ever bread oven, so I guess that makes up for it.

The oven is (will be…) situated down from the main front bit of the house, near the pond.

That beer you can see on the table is the new Super Bock superior brand, called something like the ‘Golden Classic’ or ‘European Splendor’. I forget. The shirt is hanging on the old dead ‘washing tree’ which I’d just cut down, before re-setting it in a bucket of stones and concrete (you can see the bucket in the bottom left hand corner). It’s our clothes line.

The back of the oven will be up against the earth. It’ll open out onto the path, which I’ve widened at the bottom to make a preparation / wine drinking zone.

That wall isn’t in its finished state, I should say. There was a lot more sweaty tweaking and stone fiddling before I was satisfied. Then I finished the wall.

Just above the ‘n’ of oven is a path (which I’ve uncovered and improved) leading up to another bit of the garden. So the oven will be at a nexus of paths, the centre of all fun. Much like the Olympics, the bread oven has already spurred on the regeneration of the surrounding area. Here is a raised bed which is located further up the stairs. It’ll have herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers. I might even try and grow anchovies.

That strip of darker earth is gunk from the smaller pond which I cleared out after it went septic. Mainly it’s dead snail matter and rotten lilly roots, and is amazing fertilizer. I reckon.

Here’s a photo of the actual oven area (5ft wide x 4 ft deep, which I know isn’t very big, but this is a ’starter oven’ so I’m keeping a check on my ambitions). I’ve dug down much further than it shows, and rebuilt the wall, but here’s how it looked on Day 1:

Doesn’t look like much yet. But just you wait until you’ve brushed the twigs off that first wet flap of undercooked pizza dough. Then judge it.

When the project resumes, I’ll put up a proper diagram and measurements and such. And I’ll keep you posted on the pathside regeneration (e.g. installation of a sink, building out of a deck from the upper path). The knock-on effect that this all-new Oven Zone will have on Bar Bacardi and ‘The Coop’ is yet to be seen. Bar Bacardi is about to have a new roof, so maybe that’ll help it keep custom.