Grinding to a halt (with a threat of further bovine ingression)
Well, sadly, things have rather ground to a halt, as our builder has somewhat cryptically communicated that he is sorting some other work out, and our electrical connection has been delayed by a month, perhaps by the utility company, or perhaps by our builder? We are feeling a little frustrated, but we always knew that ours would not be the only job that Pat would be working on, and have determined to maintain our patience, particularly at this early stage. We think that some real walls will now be going up in mid-April.
Yesterday morning I got a call from Ian, the Hendrewydd farmer who rents the field adjacent to the plot, to say that he was putting cows back in the field, and that he had noticed the gaps in our hedge which were made a couple of months ago. So at short notice I rounded up some paling fencing and a couple of posts and headed over there. In the event I was able to use materials left on site and do a rope and pallets job on the three gaps, reinforced by a couple of scaffolding platforms, so the rolls of chestnut paling came home. This should secure the site against the cows. We are very lucky to be building in a place where the site doesn't appear to need any other kind of security - it remains open to the road at the front.
I'll report back when anything changes.
That is really frustrating for you, and sad for your loyal followers who will now have to wait until April to see the walls going up. Kudos on the creative use of pallets and scaffolding platforms. My Dad would have been very impressed. He was a great believer in using things you already had to do fix-up jobs, often spending hours on a beautiful repair job that could have been done in 15 minutes if he had bought a new part. A brand a thriftiness borne of the war era that is totally absent over here where the motto seems to be "If it breaks, throw it away and buy a new one".
ReplyDeleteI'm right up there with your Dad when it comes to making the best of available materials. I used to write a 'It's a Stock Item' blog about jobs I did - our grown-up children still phone to ask if such and such is a stock item when they are after materials or tools.
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