Gardening with a crow bar

In preparation for new front windows and front door arriving any time soon, I've been waiting for a fine day to take down the pergola. We've always hated the damned thing - an ugly erection of tanalised timber beams with a stunted *something* growing up each side that puts out weedy flowers once year but otherwise just looks untidy. No idea what it is, but we've lived here more than five years and it's barely grown a foot in all that time. Not exactly the greenery of choice to rapidly cover a pergola in a shock of colour, it being neither rapid nor any colour more shocking that insipid white.

Fine day duly arrived, yesterday, so out I went armed with stepladder and screwdriver to disassemble, de-erect and knock down. Some of the screws were a bit rusted but through a combination of brute force and ignorance (my favourite tool) I got most of them out and the rest gave up when I pulled the beams about a bit. The main uprights posed a brief problem but I soon discovered that if I leaned my enormous bulk against them they'd snap off just below ground level.

So no probs with the pergola, but what was I to do with Mr & Mrs Weedy-Growth? At this time of year the shed door swells up to the point where locks are not required as a barrier to entry, and all gardening implements remained inaccessible behind that swollen edifice. I set to with the only tool (a) available and (b) strong enough to deal with weedy roots that were, as it turned out, anything but weedy. A few well-placed strokes and a bit of subterranean leverage and out they popped and straight into The Green Bin.

Mission accomplished. We are now growth- and pergola-free at the front and much nicer it looks too. It'll be even nicer when the old worn out drafty blue porch door is replaced with a stunning new one.