This is the first completion for the GYZero Ladies!


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This is what Wikipedia says about ruins:

Ruins is a term used to describe the remains of man-made architecture: structures that were once complete but which have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction.

Well, both the summer and the era are drawing to a close, so myself (Vicki) plus Tasha and Melissa (who has added little bits into this) decided to get together for a spot of random tasking. I'd had a quick look through the list to see if there was anything we could do, and Ruins sprung to mind. We also had an idea for the public place, what better place to put a ruin, than with another public ruin! Since we were meeting at Tasha's house. Burgh Castle seemed to be the best place to leave our "ruin".

Me and Melissa got to Tasha's house for eleven (No, Melissa did - Vicki was late) , and after a quick final look at the task page, we gathered our random bits of cardboard we had salvaged from our recycle bins, and went upstairs to work on our "masterpiece"!



Originally we had thought about making just a house (as in a box with a roof stuck on it), but after realising that shoeboxes stuck together make the best makeshift dolls house, we decided on that route instead. Our building wasn't too big' since we would have to carry it ourselves to Burgh Castle, we didn't want anything too bulky down country roads. After assuming the general shape: a bedroom, living room, garden + roof, we started working on the interiors. Tasha decorated, I made furniture, and Melly was our gardener!
After an hour or so (plus chicken burgers and a chocolate spread sandwich for Miss Veggie... ), we had finally finished our building!



The next problem was, how are we going to get it there?
Fortunately for us, Tash managed to find some kind of crate on wheels, which was perfect for fitting our house, plus "weathering equipment" in.

So off we went!

As we left, Tasha uttered the words "Well, it's only fifteen minutes to Burgh Castle, we shouldn't be too long"

Lies.

It took us an hour just to walk from one village to the next, although this may be due to the fact that we took the public footpath, through fields, past a river, and through a field of cows. Fun. (And also scary - it seems Miss Veggie is afraid of cows. Oh, the irony. )
So after walking for an endless distance it seemed, we finally saw the fort in sight!


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More Wikipedia
"Gariannonum (also written Garianonum, Gariannum) is a Roman fort near the village of Burgh Castle in Norfolk, one of several RomanSaxon raids up the rivers of the east and south coasts of southern Britain (the Saxon Shore). Established between 260 and the mid-270s to guard the River Yare (Gariannus Fluvius), it was garrisoned by the
Equites Stablesiani Gariannoneses, a detachment of the elite troops of
the Stablesian auxiliary cavalry."

Well, like the sign says, it's simply the ruins of a Roman fort. Perfect for leaving our "ruin"...

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The destruction...

So, we have our man-made building, and we thought, "How do buildings generally become ruins?".
Our first point was covered already; having travelled over fields and bumpy tarmac, we concluded that the effect was pretty much earthquake-like on that scale. We only had one casualty, however, so we decided that more terror must be inflicted onto our poor house.

Self-inflicted Earthquake


The next thing we thought, was general wear and tear. Since we couldn't really abandon it for a few weeks for nature to take its own course, we gave it a hand...



Bombing, Melissa style
Many ruins are down to warfare. So what better way to wreck our house than to have Melissa jump on it?



And then since we carried it all this way...

RAIN!



So there it was. Our house, that took a good hour or so to make, ruined in the space of ten minutes. Although, I have to say there is a strange satisfaction about wrecking things, perhaps a throwback from Remote Control Phoenix?

So finally, we "installed" our ruin in this public place, another ruin. May it rest in peace.

(we didn't actually leave it here, us lot not wanting to litter an English Heritage site, we cleared up, carried dragged it home and recycled the remnants =] and had a drink at a pub)