BASE EIGHT

Rear section of framing nearly complete

Utility room

The problem with millimetres is that I can’t see them very well. Further more centimetres cannot be divided in half but not by four. Oh for the days of inches and eighths of them. An inch you can divide by half, four, eight. Half of three quarters is three eights. But then the Romans built the whole empire with letters. Only the Babylonians had numbers giving their descendants the ability to bomb them with precision. My main problem with millimetres is confusing say 2304 with 2340. No chance of confusing 7’3 7/8” with 7´8 1/4”. I wonder if the Romans made mistakes. Was that viaduct designed to take water from Birmingham to Wales?

I have managed to frame all the back section this week, even allowing time to correct one or two mistakes. Hopefully there aren’t any I haven’t noticed. As someone said – there are known knowns … there are known unknowns … but there are also unknown unknowns - if so I shall have to curse my knitting needles and go back several rows.

Its getting warmer and I am having to adopt sun cream.

Back in the real world there is a worthy cause to sing the Verdi requiem from memory – again - in the Queen Elizabeth Hall – it’s a full life.

SECOND INVASION OF WILLIAM THE CONCRETER



concrete pump




patio shuttering




Pete & Richard




2 lorries - 11 cubic metres




front section compete




that orange thing in the sky is called the sun




fence posts in


I have discovered what makes William happy; it’s a delivery where there is no concrete left over. Surely there must be some sort of scheme for concrete left-overs – a channel tunnel perhaps?
Unfortunately Paul’s pump has died so I have had to get another contractor in – this one rather larger like a giant angle lamp, and rather more expensive. Pete and Richard helped out and it all went smoothly. The shuttering for my curved patio made up by thin slats of timber managed to survive the weight of concrete, and the nightmare of concrete going off in the wrong place did not materialize.

Richard has also built the fence for my neighbour after we knocked the last remaining wall of the old bungalow down – fortunately in the right direction.

TOOLS

Does anyone else get sentimental about tools? Aren’t they found in burial mounds? Of the six chisels my father gave me one Christmas there are three left. I did ask him why I needed six chisels, being only about six at the time. He said – you never know. One got squashed when the front section of the old bung collapsed rather earlier than anticipated – I was almost in tears.

I have found another brilliant place in Rye, tucked away out of reach of the health and safety inspector – a metal-working engineering firm. As soon as you walk in you know this is a good place where useful stuff is done. There is gentle hum of very heavy machinery and a smell of oil presiding over an overwhelming sense of procedural chaos. There is a reception but actually if you want to talk to anyone you have to make your way across a labyrinth of lathes to the hairy man in the corner. That will be an hours work - 40 quid - for the vital part for my 52-18=34 year old woodworking lathe (a child compared with this lot).

A TIME FOR TIDYING UP




Bin Man Dan removes the rockery

 all clear on the eastern front

 decline and fall

front slab ready for concrete



It's often said - somebody asked me once - have you ever seen an unattractive girl in a sports car? And when one leaves the City and dicards one's City suit, it is noticeable how interest declines from the opposite contradictory gender. Think then what it's like after 6 months on a building site. Open disdain. Expecting in the co-op queue to be spat upon any moment. Probably time I rang Louise for a haircut - if she'll have me. Then I shall walk with kings.

 

SNOW STOP PLAY



Final section of front slab ready for blinding.

I was more than a little amazed, when hacking up the concrete of the old slab, to find a rubber glove under the concrete. Since the concrete was laid in 1925, this means that rubber gloves were available at that time. Or so I thought. However, this week I found a modern water bottle top immediately under the slab, and am at my wits end for an explanation.

If I was American, I would deduce that God had in fact created the world 6 years ago, complete with our family histories, geology, American global supremacy and plastic bottle tops under concrete slabs. Rodents would be more rational.

The weather has hindered progress in the last three weeks. The latest date for completion is not before the child support agency catches up with the angel Gabriel.

FIRST SLAB CONCRETELY COMPLETED

Good progress here ...

Half term internment? Steely help from Felix

Shuttering and reinforcement completed
and approved by Bother District Council

Paul the pump man
He saved the day when the concrete started going off too early

The easy bit

The hard bit

Concrete supplied by William the Concreter of Hastings

7 cubic metres of concrete going off

PUMP PRIMING THE ECONOMY

The Environment Agency has embarked on a wetland habitat in the field between me and the sea. The nation's earthmoving equipment formerly deployed on motorway construction has arrived to create a number of lakes. It's a Marsian invasion. No Tern has been left unstoned (as the critic opined). Very nice too, and even before the machinery has moved on the birds seem to have moved in.

Suspicion only arises when you discover that all the soil being removed is being dumped in a hole which was made five years ago to get the material for the new sea defences. So all the dirt taken from the harbour two miles in our direction is being taken back again. It's obviously a colossal blunder and the wetland scheme is a cover-up. The footnote from the Environment Agency says that the lakes will not increase the risk of flooding. Help! The Agency's flood prediction record is 80% incorrect. And why are they filling up that hole again? Confidence is running low.

Or perhaps, when there was a run on the banks and the whole economy appeared in freefall, the message went out high and low - dig holes - and many of them - and then fill them up again. Its all for the birds. Don't worry about the money - we'll just print it.

It's great fun to watch, especially when a truck sinks into the bog. But I must be humble - not all schemes go to plan, and I have only a shovel.