It wasn’t till I started searching for photos of the demolition of the two reinforced concrete wine cuves in the grange, tonight, that I realised the job has taken over a year to complete.

When the builder quoted us €3 500 for their removal, we had little idea of the work involved. Now, twelve months on, we can thoroughly appreciate it.

The lads started with sledgehammers; they had no effect whatsoever. So they moved on to the angle grinder; it was more effective, causing lots of sparks and eventually making a hole. But the blade wore out long before the concrete and it became evident we’d need more serious kit for the task. We hired an industrial Stihl saw for a long weekend and, with the aid of the digger the two free walls of each cuve bit the dust; Nick was loathe to tackle the walls attached to the walls of the house by this stage, in case he knocked the whole place down! But Joel, the builder told him the method to use; cut the reinforced concrete into bite sized chunks and ease them off the house walls with a breaker (like they use to dig up the road). It’s been heavy work, requiring regular mugs of tea and mountains of cake and biscuits, but according to Nick, that kept me out of mischief!

So that’s what they’ve been doing for the last two weeks; they both have very sore arms and shoulders, but an immense sense of satisfaction and pride in a job well done. Joel’s due to start work here in the next few weeks, so things should really start to move then.