The first weekend after planning consent had us rearing to go. First up was making room in the drive for not only the cars but with luck a big yellow skip too. It's something of a chicken and egg situation: you need the skip to remove the stone and earth but you need to clear this away first to make room for the skip. Happily in this instance the smaller egg is much easier to deal with first rather than trying to fit a large chicken somewhere it won't fit.

The plan is to remove the small wall and large flowerbed to push the usable space right back to the retaining wall (a gain of about 5 feet or 40%). We'll be keeping hold of the espalier plum and pear trees though because I do like my crumbles in the autumn. Ultimately we'll be spreading Cotswold stone chippings over the area with a few courses of cobbles at the front but this latter stage features very last on the to do list.

Beth started the day with a half marathon because nothing says "I want to help" like running away for a couple of hours. Meanwhile, armed with a bolster and lump hammer I set to. Having bought a lovely new battery SDS and chisel bits helped too. Progress was initially slow, mainly due to having to clear the stone away as it was removed. the wall splitting itself was relatively easy, the mortar yielding to the percussion of hardened steel.

Upon Beth's return we had a quick lunch before a brief instruction on power tools and I let her loose with the SDS to great effect. The wall blew down so quickly the big bad wolf would have been impressed. We only cropped it down to ground level rather than messing with the foundations and thanks to the spoils now have an authentic stone cairn to boot.

Meanwhile we had a little clear of the cascading ivy to tidy the place up a bit. What was that poking out behind a green screen or leaves? A small wooden lintel? Further investigation found a barred window onto a subterranean passage behind the end wall. Clearly a throwback to the original building, a space between the cliff face and end wall, neither of us felt like jumping into an unknown dark hole this early on in the project. It looks quite exciting, if only we could find a sensible use for it. Wine cellar anyone?

With the ground levelled and some stone chippings thrown down for tyre purchase we'd smashed out a solid day's work with great results. We've gone from two awkwardly angled cars poking out into the road to a driveway big enough for three. If only it were all as simple as shifting a ton of stones...