It seemed liked such a good idea at the time, a cedar wood hot tub for the garden, in principle a straight forward project, no fancy joints, just wood with just a little bit of easy plumbing.

I started with the base, and it all went well, and I managed to cut pretty close to a perfect circle. I found an online calculator to help me work out the circumference, which made the maths nice and easy, and then it went down hill.

The base which is a 1.48mt diameter circle works out to approx. 4.5mts circumference which translates into 65 x 70mm wide staves for the side, each one has to cut to size, put through the planer several times, angles on the side cut, sanded, and finally the rebates marked out and then cut, times 65 staves. After a day’s hard work their all finally cut and shaped, and the rebates marked out, which alone took an hour and 268 operations of a marking gauge, you find yourself counting and calculating, how many times. To make matters worse for most of the time I’m wearing ear defenders so I cant even listen to the radio to pass the time.

The bit that keeps me going is the knowledge that the weather forecast has improved for the holiday weekend, the end is in sight, and for once I have a decent stock of wood offcuts for the wood fired water heater. On Monday when we  slowly sink into this enormous tub of steaming water it will all seem worth it. I can hardly wait.