Cement in the columns

I'm late starting this update today as I was out for a beer and chat with Dincher and I just got back; let's get to it.

The sun is just about to appear

The line of the sun sliding down the hill

A lucky tortoise I saved from the road

This morning I was again up and at it early, watching the sun rise over the mountains (and the line of the sun fall down the hills behind us) while working away. I took Rosie to school today to help Angela with other tasks she had to do and on the way home I was very pleased to be able to save a tortoise that was stopped mid way through crossing the very fast road at the bottom of our hill. Fortunately the car in front of me avoided it and there was no one following so I pulled over, ran and grabbed it and put it on the verge. I love tortoises and there's something about seeing a 70-80 middle aged creature squashed by some idiot in a car that drives me mad.

Bekir fits the final bits of rebar in place

Mixing up a batch of cement

The leaky pipe, and the wire attempt at fixing it

Halil brings the cement to Bekir

Wall widened, time for blocks

Welding the final upright in position

The men were in (actually we saw them turn to the village as we headed to school) when I got back and working on the end wall past the duck pond; this needed some more reinforcing and then a small amount of cement to widen the end wall enough to put some blocks on to bring it up to the correct height. Halil did the mixing with the machine (and I chuckled at the state of the hosepipe they are using, many times mended and still hanging on) and then with the cement they rebuilt the wall before starting to lay the blocks. With the blocks in place Bekir welding the final column in place and that part of the build is done.

Halil delivers more cement

Bekir checks it is straight

The base of the wall extends

Next task was to pour cement into the bottom of each of the columns, to hold those in place very securely before the chain link is attached. I was there for the pour of the first one then had to go back inside but they did every single column between the pond and the gate (which was all of the shuttering they had finished yesterday) before then pivoting to continue fitting shuttering further along the wall. This stage feels like it is going a bit slower than expected but that's mainly because I hadn't understood fully what was involved in doing all these things. It's going to be the best chicken enclosure in Bulgaria, though!

The frame is assembled and positioned

The Little Lady harvesting

Having a nice meal with my mate

After school and work I had a lot of fun with Rosie helping (and actually helping) me put together a frame for the garden for Angela. She will train the melons up over this now. It will look great. While we were doing this The Little Lady came over to harvest some of our tea tree and we persuaded her to borrow a proper ladder and not climb on a flimsy plastic chair to access the tree. I then had a last minute invite for a beer and a chat with Dincher, our solicitor and my mate; he filled me in on the latest in our attempt to buy the observatory and that's still delayed so I won't even talk about it any more.