A new aerial mast

When the former owners of these properties designed our holiday cottage, Gwenoldy, and had it created from the former stable and forge, they wisely chose not to affix a television aerial to the building.  And, as there was no loft space in which to hid the antenna, they ran the lead underground for thirty yards and put the aerial on the corner of the postbarn, home of the 1964 Fordson Super Dexta tractor.

In a couple of weeks the postbarn will be demolished and replaced by an enclosed 'implements store', approved by the planners to support our horticultural activities.  This will be a largely steel construction, but it has been designed in two sections to deal with the sloping site and mimic the construction of the original bakehouse and pigsties on the other side of the horseshoe-shaped 'courtyard'.  It's going to be constructed and erected for us by a firm which specialises in agrictultural buildings.

In the meantime, however, there is the minor issue of maintaining the TV signal to the cottage. From our track we can see the Moel y Parc transmission tower, all 850 feet of it.

This carries, amongst other things, TV and radio signals for North East Wales, and clearly had to act as inspiration for my temporary structure (our aerial will go back in due course on the new outbuilding).

So on Saturday the workshop was raided for bolts, the recycled woodpile for posts, and, with the use of both the post rammer (beast) and the maul (slightly less of a beast) our stony soil was penetrated to provide a firm foundation for our mast - all 25 feet of it.

Yes, I know, it looks like the kind of flagpole scouts (used to?) erect at camp.  Not quite in keeping with our luxury, 5-star cottage.  I agree, but it is only temporary, and do you have any better ideas?