Well, after extensive reading of this site, and a bit of sage advice from these pages, the patio is finally finished.
Retaining wall has been built, slabs are down (no rockers have yet appeared), edge course is in, and the 'project manager' is very happy (and will be happier still when shes got the sun lounger out there!).
All thats left to do is the jointing, build the steps up to the lawn, fit the recessed drain cover, fix the leaking gutter to stop the slabs going green, get rid of 6 tonnes of soil/hardcore, and reseed the lawn. Did I say finished, haha!
Thanks again to Tony for a great resource, the patio would not look half as good without it.
My digi camera is broken at the mo, but will try and post some mobile phone pics, but the quality 'aint great.
Was indeed a lot of work. The house is ex-MOD, and it seems they built the orginal concrete patio, path and walls to last. Which is probably why someone just put another load of slabs over the top, covered the wall and turfed over the top! The ground level had been raised so much, it came up to the sill on the door frame!
Hence about 5-6 tonnes of waste waiting to be shifted.
