It's tricky this mortaring malarkey

The pool most in need of fixing was this strange one with a bit of pipe poking through the edge so I decided to try my first ever mortaring skills here.

A few days ago I painted pond sealant into the cracks I could see on all the pools so at least if the mortar failed the sealant is a good backstop.

I've used lime mortar, it has a few hours work time before it's too hard, that gave me enough time to make mistakes and fix them. There were a few, but you can't see them now!

I'm really pleased with the result.

So, flushed with success I bought some non-limed mortar this morning to fix 2 steps and set the circle of crazy paved stones in. The only trouble was it sets hard in 30 mins and they say you only have 5 mins to get it right. Eek!

I have to say I was so pleased with the first step ...

I moved on to the second one ...

then the broken bird bath - not sure if that will hold but it's worth a try.

Next step (haha) is the crazy paved stone circle, but that's for another day.