Thanks Bazzaboy, I think I need to sit down over numerous evenings with a glass of red to fully think through the design. But what you say is useful, and it sounds as though I am on the right track. At the moment, all the paths are just trodden weeds - I have a few concrete slabs I saved from the builders to move for the main path, but I was only going to put wood chippings (if there are more left on the site this year) on the side ones. I'll probably have to do that with the back e4nd of the main path too.

I think salvaging the back door has been knocked on it's head - both practicalities of it and the fact that it should fit in next door's backdoor (maybe - their door is the opposite to ours, but we can probably swop it around to work). As she can't afford a new one (hers is the original, 20+years old and single glazed pine), she's going to see if ours (a replacement bought 5 years ago) will work, and the dining room window too. Which is a use I'd prefer to see it going to if it does work.

MrsKP, you're right on the compost space - I have a full dalek at home (we emptied it in March last) which is for the garden waste (not that much - we've very little lawn left and not that much other waste), grass from my gran's garden (OH brings back a large sack of it when he cuts it for her - all the clippings on that road go behind the trees on the backroad, and they're useful for us), and the kitchen waste (the majority of the raw material - veg peelings, teabags and coffee grounds, hoover bag stuff, used tissues and hair of my brushes - that kinda stuff). The dalek on the plot is only there since August and has already been filled a couple of times (until it drops with the heat). Prior to that, we piled all waste in a heap - but is was a lot of couch grass and other nasties. I've got a load of old fence boards to move from the side of the house to the plot and I'm going to clear some ground at the back of the plot for these - compost bays will be the end result I hope.