Monday, 1st August …..

The sun’s shining again today but the forecast is for more rain so there are no workmen on site. It was all go on Friday with Les and I starting on the enclosing of the back verandah and Trevor and Brendan here to finish the laying of the slab.

Les is a bit casual in the way he works so we had no drawings of what the construction should look like and our tools were not really up to the job. We held the lengths of wood against the side of the house until they looked right and then attached them to the existing verandah with bugle screws. After we had the fourth one up, we realised we hadn’t allowed enough space at the top to attach the roof beams. Clearly there were two options. Get up a ladder and cut a bit off each upright with a hand saw or take them down and start again.

We opted for the latter. We also needed to upgrade our tools, too, so work stopped for the day. We were using cordless drills to put in the 100mm screws and they just didn’t have enough grunt. Les has a more powerful drill at home so will bring that back next time. Jamie and I went to Bunnings (great shop!) on Saturday morning and bought a light-weight drill and a fantastic box of all the drill bits we might conceivably want. Cheap Chinese stuff, of course, but will look great in our new shed.

It was a bit daunting for me to be posing as a builder when there were two real builders on site laying the slab. By mid-morning, the road base had been put in and they were waiting for the cement truck which arrived around noon. First problem! It got bogged about 50m from where the cement had to be poured. After a frantic phone call, another truck arrived and pulled him out. On the second attempt, taking a different route, it bogged again. There’s nothing for it, said Trevor, we’ll have to use barrows. Another phone call and two barrows arrived.

One of them was motorised!. I’ve never seen one before and I can imagine it will cut down on the difficulties of pushing a heavy barrow across rough ground. However, it only worked for about three loads before it broke down. For some mechanical reason, it can’t be used manually so, if the motor stops, the barrow is just another heap of junk. So, they were down to one barrow to move all the concrete. Because the weather was threatening, they had ordered a quick-drying mixture and time was getting away.

It was after 5 oçlock before Trevor was able to leave it but the final result was great.

In the way of the bush, a wallaby hopped across it during the night leaving a permanent reminder of the other residents of the area.

I think we were premature in cancelling work for today. There’s no sign yet of the rain and we’re missing out on some very productive time. I’ll finish this writing and get on with washing down the sides of the house. You can see in one of the pictures the sort of dirt which is all over the panels. Jamie tells me it is jet exhaust from the planes flying low into Launceston. Whatever it is, it is sticky and I have to use a stiff brush and a bleach mixture to move it. I might try out the Karcher pressure washer to see whether it might make my job a little easier.