On with the stairs

I was sat here this evening getting lots of stuff done and then I suddenly remembered that I hadn't done the blog so now I'm hurrying to get it done.

Rosie planting her flowers

I'll start with a really fun thing at Rosie's school this morning. They have got all the kids to plant flowers along the front planters by her school and Rosie with her best friend dug out and planted a beautiful succulent we bought for her. Here's hoping she keeps it alive!

Fixing the battens into place with nails

More wood required

Lovely new stairs looking great

More washing, nice and clean

Working on more steps

The men arrived just as Angela and I got back from our breakfast in town and they were straight into setting up the forms for the new steps. They did find out they were a bit short of planks so popped down to the shop to pick some more up, also getting the shop to cut them to length. With the forms all in place for the top run of stairs they went to mixing up some very strong cement and then began slapping it in place and smoothing it down. Near the middle of the afternoon they finished up that first run so got the power washer and cleaned the bottom run of stairs, then started setting up more forms. They ran out of wood so mixed more mortar and by the end of the day they had done another four or five more steps. I can now no longer go up into my roof space until probably Sunday as it will take a while to dry.

Full raised bed with soil and compost

Shifting kindling from outside...

... into an internal storage area

I've also had a pretty productive time. The first job was to finish up filling the new raised bed, which I did early in the day. Later on, while Angela went to collect Rosie, I grabbed a wheelbarrow and started to shift kindling in from the outside woodstore into the boxes that we have in our inside wood store. I'm going to have to get out there and start cutting up some of the trees we have stored as well; they are right in the way.

I'll leave you with this video of Rosie digging in the sand and doing really well operating the excavator toy. She had a lot of fun after school today playing with lots of things.

So there you are; the first week of the men's return is done. Thanks for reading, back on Monday (if I don't forget!)