Re-instating the pizza oven

Today I had another go at re-instating the pizza oven. I cleaned it all out and lit with dry wood using the “raft technique” which worked well. Good dry wood appears to be absolutely essential. I had it going for over 5 hours and it was definitely drying out with steam rising off the bricks. It seemed a waste to burn all that wood just to dry the oven so I christened the oven with a pizza, albeit a frozen one. 

The first pizza! Slightly caramalized.

I also attempted to re-instate the lights around the area. I  ran conduit between the power source and the lamps and threaded new wire. Sadly two out of the three lights seem to have corroded beyond repair, so more are on order now. I then decided to scrape away all of the white gravel in the area, tidied the border to and put down weedmat. I then started washing the soil off the gravel and putting it back. This turned out to be a long slow process, which will have to continue another day. When I moved the bench seat adjacent to the pizza oven the leg fell off! Another project ...

The bench seat is in need of some attention

Lots of rotten bits