The Carù National Observatory

Hahahahaaa... Spring is in the air, the sun is shining brightly, the birds are singing... My whole body is awakening and above all, the part that wants to... construct something! And let us hope, without cutting in my hands this time... So, what could I make? A whopping 25" telescope? Ai... Christine throws the frying pan at my head and only misses me by a hair. OK, I cancel the telescope... for now... But what else could I do then? I've already finished the henhouse. The porch next to our house perhaps? Forbidden because Christine says that needs to be done "professionally", and she's probably right. What could I do... what could I do... my hands are itching...
- "Hey! Where are you going to?", Christine shouts at me.
- "I'm going to construct an observatory!"
- "But... an observatory??? And where exactly???"
- "Right there!", I say with a lot of pride in my voice, pointing at the top of the crest in our field.
- "There???", she responds in horror, "Straight in the middle of the view from our terrace??? No, it can't be true!"
- "But where do I have to make it then?"
- "A lot further away from our house! A lot!"
There's nothing more to do. Whatever Christine says is law. I walk about twenty yards further into the field.
- "Here?"
- "No! Still way too close!"
- "But... if I go even further, I'll be in that wood over there!"
- "That's fine with me!"
At this point there is a slight argument which I won't mention here because it is not intended for the faint-hearted. And because we're still "Belgians" (for the moment still), we make a compromise that is no good for noone but which assures a kind of armed peace. I can construct my observatory where I'm standing, and she can put a large tree in front of our house. You can imagine that I have always violently resisted this tree when I still wanted to observe the heavens from in front of our house. But since I can soon look at the stars from my observatory in the field, this tree doesn't matter at all to me anymore.
- "And you can put a nice climbing rose against my observatory. That way it'll not disturb the view as much."
Ah... I'm so brilliant, aren't I? I know exactly how to move my dear wife in the right direction.
- "OK... allright...", she says with a bit of doubt, "but first I want to know how much it will cost."
So, I start making a plan so I can give her an estimate:

On this page you can see the front of the observatory/shed, with a big double door 1,6m wide and 2,3m high. Big enough for my future 25" Obsession telescope. But Christine doesn't know that yet... :-)

In order to lower the cost even further, I've already begun to make a foundation which will cost us nothing at all. After the restoration of our house there was still some cement and sand left and in our field there was an entire pile of old terracotta tiles which we can't use anymore in the house itself. But they'll make an excellent observing terrace. I would have preferred to make it in wood, like teak or bankirai, because wood doen't absorb the heat as much and will create less turbulences inside the telescope. But this owuld cost us a fortune and above all, I'm having serious doubts about the origin of tropical wood.
So I started putting a layer or two of tiles to stabilise the ground a bit:

Then, I made the final layer on a dry mixture of sand and cement:

This is where I am at the moment:

Oh... I just can't wait to put my telescope there... :-)

Next week I hope to be able to get started on the shed itself but it's going to be bad weather for the next couple of days. Soooo frustrating...