Surprise!

Returning home after a week always involves some surprises, especially in the garden. The weeds that you thought you had carefully destroyed before you left always recover in your absence and suddenly shoot up about three feet. The grass gets long. Roses that were mere buds when you left are now in full bloom.

But this time there was more -- much more.

When we left we had just gotten the approval from the town for our deck to be built, and our carpenter was going to work on it in our absence.

The deck had been designed carefully using a fancy computerized design system, with all the measurements carefully depicted. Originally we'd thought we'd have it built 10 feet wide and 23 feet long (the width of the house). But our carpenter said for the same price he could do 12 feet wide. It seemed like a good idea so we said that would be fine.

While we were at the Cape, our carpenter called once to reconfirm the width of the steps that we wanted, and then told us he'd try to have it done when we got home.

We arrived late in the afternoon, eagerly anticipating our new deck, and we were not disappointed.

There it was, in all its glory - not done yet, but done enough for us to see what it looks like.

The thing is HUGE. HUMONGOUS. VERY BIG. Viewed from the back door, it's like looking out over the deck of the Intrepid. The boards seem to stretch on into infinity; there is enough room on this structure to fit both of the sets of wooden tables and chairs that we have on our patio plus the new table and chairs we just bought for the deck, the grill, numerous potted plants, and possibly a large group of dancing girls (that was DH's idea).

We walked into the back yard to observe it from a different angle. To my relief, from the back yard it does not seem quite as enormous, and I'm hoping our neighbors do not think it is some kind of monstrosity.

We are thinking that once the railings get put on and we actually do put furniture and other accoutrements onto its surface that it will start looking downright cozy. And the wood has to be stained to a darker color, so it will become less noticeable. I think. And we're going to dig up the old "patio" (which was really the leftover cement floor from the long-defunct garage) and transform it into a lovely English style garden (we hope). So in the end it will all blend together nicely.

Diva loves it. She has already realized that of course we built it just for her and has claimed it as her own. The only problem is that she has not quite figured out that she is supposed to go up and down the steps and instead launches herself over the side, dropping precipitously about 4 feet down to the surface of the yard. So far she has not broken a leg but I'm sure it is only a matter of time. (I assume this behavior will stop once the railings are in place.)

One thing is for sure - when it's ready for habitation we can have a heck of a good deck-warming party. Because for sure this deck is meant for PARTYING!