The builders have been given a rather straightforward jigsaw puzzle to assemble. You will see in the photo album here that the jigsaw pieces arrive in the form of big black rolls. All they have to do is pick up the right one with a big spike, pop it onto a dinky little dumper truck, take to the right place and then unroll it with the application of a bit of brute force.

Carpet wrangling could become a new sport as each roll is then manually jiggled about to get into just the right place.

No joining of pieces has yet been witnessed but I am assured that it might possibly involve solvent. Or maybe twine.

The silver construction fence is now much reduced. Eskie is nearly able to lick the turf (she wants to know what a tiger tastes like) as we can now approach and touch the big green fence.

No sign of Bert today - he seems to be resting upon his laurels as everyone else toils in the burning sun.

Meanwhile, the anonymous mound is being sculpted into its final form. It is looking really good and once covered in cheering supporters will be quite splendid.

Contrary to Eskie’s expectations, searing heat seems to promote intense activity so the carpet is expected to rapidly appear across the entire black shock absorbing layer and we will have ourselves a hockey pitch. Rumours indicate that the hockey pitch will still be on an inaccessible building site for a while but Eskie is currently plotting her next suite of “when the heck can we play hockey on it?” rumours. I haven’t told her about the “No Dogs” sign yet, which is not yet in evidence but is rumoured to exist somewhere in the supply chain.

No news on the electricity yet, which is still caught up in some form of formal process of permissions and announcements. The lights are noticeably absent from the poles, so I will send Eskie off into the bushes to look for them on our next visit.