Quadring grandad Paul Baker has been delighting villagers by making his garden wackier and wackier
A Quadring grandad has been bringing a smile to people’s faces during what has been a difficult year – by making his garden wackier and wackier.
From a giant model duck, to a mannequin sitting in a canoe, the addition of pygmy goats - and a full-size glider propped up in a tree, passers-by have been fascinated to see what Paul Baker will come up with next.
And now he’s gone all out for Christmas in the front garden of his home in Main Road by adding a Christmas tree-shaped spire to the top of a goat tower (which has this year sported a pirate flag and other adornments), sparkling Christmas lights and an inflatable Santa and snowmen.
Retired taxi firm owner Paul (59) moved into the former council house he shares with his wife Teresa 18 months ago. The house itself needed extensive improvements and he quickly got to work.
“We had to redo the electrics, the heating, put in new bathrooms and shower rooms,” he said. “Everything I do is self-taught or I have worked with someone else to do it. I am no builder but I can build from wood, I did the brick pillars outside from scratch. I quite like roofing and I did a lot of the internal work. We had a builder who lives in Donington.
“But everything in the garden is me! We had to clear it all to begin with. It was completely overgrown. No one had done anything with it for 20-odd years. I used a mini digger to clear it all. Once the house was finished I was allowed to play in the garden. A lot of it is reclaimed, begged and borrowed!”
On the whole, Paul says the reaction to his garden has been positive and his aim is to make people smile.
“There are not many days when somebody doesn’t stop out the front. People stop and have a natter and have been asking me ‘what are you doing for Christmas?’
“Someone left me a bag of sweets and people say they think it is great when they go past.”
As well as the pygmy goats, Paul keeps his own chickens. His most recent additions include a boat he got from a man in Surfleet, on which he has painted the face of a shark; and he’s currently in the process of building an ‘upside-down house’ from wood which will stand on its roof.
When asked if he is trying to make his garden as wacky as possible, Paul laughed: “That’s the idea! It actually slows people down when they drive past. This is still a 30 mph limit here.”
Paul finds a lot of items for his garden locally or from car boots, Facebook or eBay – such as a big model chicken and the old red telephone box he has installed outside the house.
“I’ll see something and think ‘what could I do with that?’” he added. “The chicken came from a car boot and there was a neon sign with it that said ‘Ey up, me duck!’
“I’d wanted to build a wind turbine in the garden to power the Christmas lights, but the council said ‘no’ to that one.”
Last year, Paul hit the headlines when the boat-themed tree house he built for two of his grandchildren in Donington (Elsie, then 6 and Lily, then 3), was nearly ordered to be taken down by planners at South Holland District Council. The family did not realise it needed planning consent – but it was later allowed to stay.
And Paul said he would be keen to purchase nearby land from a local farmer to grow his project and has his eye on keeping alpacas.