Bank Holiday Shed, Down She Came

 Right then, I promised you the full shed story last time and then got sidetracked banging on about beans and pumpkins instead, so let's put that right. I told you it was fixed, and it was, more or less, but "fixed" doesn't really cover what actually went into it. What actually went into it was a bank holiday, a crowbar, several prayers, and my wife holding up half a shed while I swore at a nail. So here's the proper version, the one with all the bits I left out.

Where We Left Off

You'll remember, if you were paying attention, that the week before the bank holiday was all about getting the new base sorted. That leaning old shed at home had been driving me quietly mad for years, tipping a bit further every winter like it was trying to lie down and give up, and I'd finally had enough of pretending the lean added character. So Sara and I spent an afternoon or two sinking two four-inch posts into the ground where the new shed was going to stand, getting them properly upright with the spirit level rather than "upright by eye," which is how most of my previous efforts have gone. We cemented them in to a height of almost six foot, just shy of where the roofline would sit, so they'd take the weight of the back wall and give the whole thing something solid to lean against for once, rather than the other way round.

Once that had gone off hard, we built the base frame on top of it, using concrete blocks spaced every couple of feet across the whole footprint of the shed. It's not glamorous work, levelling blocks and checking them with a spirit level every five minutes until your knees give out, but it's the sort of job that pays you back later. A shed is only ever as good as what's underneath it, and I'd rather spend a weekend getting that bit right than spend the next ten years wondering why the door won't shut properly.

Bank Holiday Monday: Judgement Day for the Shed

Monday came, and with it the bit I'd been not-so-secretly dreading: actually taking the old girl apart. I'll be honest, there's always a moment before a job like this where you stand there with your tea going cold, looking at the thing, and wondering whether you've bitten off more than you can chew. Then Sara comes out, hands you a crowbar, and the moment passes because there's no backing out now.

We started at the top. I'd left the felt on the roof deliberately, and cut it straight down the middle of the ridge with a Stanley knife so the two halves would come away as one sensible piece each, rather than in confetti. Both sections lifted off cleanly enough and got put aside, out of the way, propped against the fence like a pair of tired old wings. Then came the end with the door in it, though the door itself had to come off first, obviously, unless we fancied wrestling with it swinging about the whole time, which we didn't.

The sides were next, and here's where a bit of forward planning actually paid off for once: I'd gone round earlier in the week, before the bank holiday even arrived, and taken out every screw I could find holding the panels together. That meant on the day itself I only had to deal with nails, prying them up gently with the crowbar while Sara did the genuinely hard job of keeping the whole panel from toppling over sideways. Holding up a wobbly shed wall while someone else levers nails out of it is not a job that gets enough credit, and I told her so, though possibly not in those exact words at the time.

Once we'd got it all down to the floor, we stopped for a minute, more out of relief than anything, and had a proper look at what we'd actually been standing on all these years. I was half expecting it to be rotten through, given how long that shed had been leaning at an angle that would have alarmed a health and safety inspector, but it was in remarkably good nick. Only one board needed replacing. We'd also had to patch up and swap out a couple of the wall boards while we were at it, nothing serious, just the usual wear you'd expect after however many winters. By this point it was starting to look distinctly like rain, the sky doing that flat grey thing it does before it really means business, so I did what any sensible man does in that situation and prayed to whichever gods happen to be listening, above and below, to hold off for another hour or two. They obliged, as it turned out, which I'm choosing to take full credit for.

Sara, the Crowbar, and Squaring It All Up

With the floor relaid on the new base, we started putting the shed back together, and this is the bit where I'll give you an actual tip, because I did learn something the hard way. We placed the back panel against the new posts first and worked outward from there, connecting each piece to it in turn and gradually pulling the whole structure square against the posts and the base as we went.

Here's the tip, and it's one worth remembering if you're ever putting up anything with four corners, shed or otherwise: don't trust your eye to tell you it's square, because your eye will lie to you every single time. Measure across both diagonals, corner to corner, and if those two measurements match, it's square. If they don't, it isn't, no matter how straight it looks standing there in your garden with a cup of tea in your hand telling yourself it's fine. We did this twice on the bank holiday, and the second time saved us from a door that would have hung crooked for the next twenty years. It costs you two minutes with a tape measure and saves you a lifetime of a door that won't quite shut.

By the time we'd got it all connected and squared up, it genuinely looked like a different shed, not just a straightened-up version of the old one. New guttering went on next, because the old stuff had given up the ghost years ago and simply directed water wherever it fancied, usually straight down the back of my neck if I happened to be walking past at the wrong moment. Then a splash of paint, the same black we'd used at the allotment after that bargain tin Sara will tell you I can never walk past, and honestly, what a difference. Sam took one look at the finished job from the kitchen window, said "that's actually not bad," and went straight back to whatever he was doing on his phone, which I've decided to take as high praise coming from him. Iris was rather more complimentary, mostly because she's already got plans for what she wants to store in it.

Meanwhile, Up the Plot

While all that was going on at home, the allotment carried on without us, as it tends to. The sweetcorn is nearly done now, which always sneaks up on me every year no matter how closely I think I'm watching it. Tomatoes and cucumbers are still going, though noticeably less enthusiastically than they were even a week ago, the way they always start to taper off once the light begins to change, even before the weather properly turns.

The pumpkins and butternut squashes have finished for the season, but we're leaving them where they are on the vine rather than bringing them in straight away. If you read last time, you'll know Iris has her heart set on proper home-grown pumpkins for Halloween, carved on the doorstep, and I'm not the one who's going to argue with that. Leaving them out a bit longer lets the skins toughen up and cure properly, which matters far more than people think if you want them to actually last until the end of October rather than turning to mush on the doorstep a week early. Just keep something dry underneath each one, a tile or a bit of slate does the job nicely, so they're not sitting directly on damp soil the whole time.

It's been a funny old week weather-wise, one of those weeks of two halves, dry enough to get the shed job done without incident and then, right on cue once we didn't need it to hold off any more, plenty of rain arriving to make up for lost time. I can't say I mind it, mind. The ground could do with it, and there's something rather satisfying about looking out at proper rain through a window while sat in a shed that no longer leaks.

Saturday, As Ever

Saturday was bread day, same as it always is in this house, rain or shine, sheds finished or otherwise. I did try something a bit different this week, though: sandwich thins, rather than my usual cobs. The thinking was purely practical. Cobs are lovely, but they take up a fair bit of room in the freezer once you've made a full batch, and I'm forever trying to squeeze one more bag of something in around them. Thins, being flatter, stack far more sensibly, and I'm hoping they'll see us through the week just as well without needing quite so much freezer real estate. Early verdict: promising, though I'll know for certain once we've properly tested a few from frozen.

Because I Can't Resist a Recipe

Here's the recipe, then, seeing as I went to the trouble of working it out. These are soft, flat little rolls, perfect for a sandwich, and they freeze and defrost far better than you'd expect from something this simple.

Simon's Sandwich Thins

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 7g fast-action dried yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Around 300ml warm water, added gradually

Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar together in a large bowl, then make a well in the middle and add the oil. Gradually work in the warm water until you've got a soft dough that's come cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. Turn it out and knead for a good eight to ten minutes, until it's smooth and springs back when you poke it. Leave it in an oiled bowl, covered, somewhere warm for about an hour, until it's doubled in size.

Knock the dough back and divide it into eight equal pieces. Instead of shaping these into rounds the way you would for a cob, flatten each one out with the palm of your hand into a disc about half a centimetre thick, roughly the size of a saucer. Lay them on floured baking trays, cover loosely, and leave to prove for another twenty minutes or so, just enough to puff up slightly rather than double again. Bake at 220°C (200°C fan) for around ten to twelve minutes, keeping an eye on them, because being flatter they cook a good deal quicker than a full-sized cob and you don't want much colour on them at all, just pale gold.

Once they're completely cool, slice each one through the middle as if you were splitting it for a sandwich, then stack and bag them up for the freezer. Take one straight from frozen in the morning and it'll be thawed and ready by lunchtime, which is exactly the sort of low-effort forward planning I can get behind.

So that's the week, or the fortnight really, once you count the base-laying as well: a shed that finally stands up straight, a floor that turned out to be far healthier than it deserved to be, sweetcorn winding down, pumpkins living dangerously on the vine, and a freezer full of thins to see us through. I'd love to know, has anyone else ever discovered their old shed floor was in better shape than expected once they finally got round to looking properly, or am I just the lucky one this time?

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.