Building season restarts

As hoped I am back for the second day in a row with an update as today we did have the men on site. Tomorrow I think they will not be here as it is forecast for heavy rain all day.

Rosie watches the sheep watching her

Firstly though a picture from last night that didn't get off my phone in time for the blog yesterday; I went for my now traditional walk with Rosie after school/work and we sat on a step and watched the sheep walk past us. She loves seeing these animals, and the cows, and was very excited indeed.

Halil starts to break apart the old slab

Clearing the drainage

Cement poured into the gap

The men arrived while Angela was dropping Rosie to school and got stuck straight in to the first task of the day which was the repair the gap we found by the back door that was allowing damp into the library. This involved chipping the existing cement back, clearing some of the badly applied insulation, and pouring cement into the gap. While they were out there Halil cleaned out the drainage channel which had become completely clogged. I need to add this to my list of jobs to do at the end of every summer - we have some that is just as badly in need to clearing by the driveway, and soon will on the patio also.

Thelma watches as Halil makes a start

Steady progress through the morning

Angela tries to strim but it is too wet

One section cleared

Removing weeds and grass

With that first task done they went out to the front patio and started the main first job of the year. We are going to pour a large concrete slab for our patio and need to put drainage is as the slab will be flat so will not drain well. This is because we are putting our above ground swimming pool on top. We will be fitting drainage channels every 2-3 meters or so to take water away so need a bit of additional depth near the house but Bekir worked out that they don't need to remove more than about 4 or so rows of existing slabs. The first section they took too many out. It will be a big pour, and we'll need to source lots of broken rocks, but with the reduction in number of slabs to lift it should go quicker. There is a lot of overgrowth however and areas where the slabs have been stolen or broken up entirely. It's so good to get a start; I wish the weather was nice enough for them to be here tomorrow as well. There was other progress today; the dining room table is now back in the dining room looking great, and Angela did a huge amount of tidying and clearing; she also tried to strim around the flower beds but the grass was just too wet. We lost power for the entirety of the afternoon which was incredibly frustrating but I was able to tidy some of my stuff as well as cleaning the petchka pipes in the kitchen.

Happy walk with Daddy

One other benefit of the power cut was I got to go and collect Rosie. When we got back we went for a lovely walk on our little round that she enjoys so much. She was very happy indeed to be out with her daddy.

As I say I think tomorrow is going to be a building bust but hopefully they'll be back on Thursday. Thanks for reading!