A slab at last

7.2.2011

BUILDING NEWS

Today was the big day. Early in the morning the concrete pump arrived followed by truck after truck of fairly sloppy concrete. First John had all the trenches filled followed by the solar buffer zones and then they worked along the main building from east to west. Fortunately the gumboots were needed on feet meaning assaults had to be verbal as the pressures came on.

Amazingly the slab was down before lunchtime so that this afternoon the men could work at it with the helicopters. It all looks very flat to me and they kept checking it with a laser devise on a stick. (At least, I am assuming that ‘s what it was). What a relief. Thunderstorms are forecast for tomorrow and Friday but we are safe now. This is the first stage complete.

The concrete has to cure now and will need around two weeks to get up to strength. This gives us much needed time to plan for stage two. The coming stage is a complicated one because it is all the walls and windows, but being concrete we will need to put in plumbing and electricity conduit as we go. Also the hydronic heating and chimney will need to be built in at the same time. I think I need a session with Al to make sure we have all the planning done right.

OTHER NEWS

Exhaustion is setting in. What a week! I am now able to look around a bit and have discovered that lots of Lilydale was flooded. There are pictures on U-tube of some one jet skiing up the road in front of Simon’s brewery! Bo is due to get her car back today and so that drama is resolved too.

Issues are piling up in the rest of our lives. Literally. Everyday I harvest buckets of apples and plums. I really need to make plum jam and plum and chilli sauce but these are hot jobs and take a lot of time. Maybe next week I will get the motivation.
I am also behind with gardening and the pool is going green but Edd has won out with the water in the new tank. It had gone from green to red and scummy when he first treated it but the scum rose to the surface and we skimmed it off with the swimming pool net. Now the water is coming from the taps looking crystal clear and a lot more wholesome. I can wash clothes again.

Josh has phoned to say he has found a room to rent in Perth and he seems well away from the bush fires that have already burnt nearly 80 homes. We just don’t seem to get a drama free week at the moment. A good bit of news is that one of my school friends and her husband who have lived for years in Hong Kong may be able to visit us in early March. I am really looking forward to that. Fortunately Josh left his cabin reasonably clean this time and it did not even leak in the recent rains. Neither did my bedroom! The wind must have been from a different direction because it leaked over our desk instead.