eagles watch our build

113.2011

BUILDING NEWS

The sun is back, the skies are blue and three eagles soar in the air currents over our building site. Down below Edd and the six members of the brick laying team are flying along and have almost completed the back wall. Edd has inserted pipes for the cool air tubes and is dealing with other smaller conduits.

Already the wall shelters us from all else in Steels Creek and encloses everyone so that only the view of the dam and surrounding hills make up our world. With music playing and things going to plan there is a relaxed almost festive feeling as work proceeds.

I am back on paying bills and answering phone calls. Edd has persuaded the window people to make us two last minute arched doorframes and they are asking about the required rebate. I wish we still worked in inches! Hopefully the next delivery of blocks is now ordered and we can start on the internal walls next week.

My friends Lucy and Ron from Hong Kong helped sort out possible good bricks from the badly heat damaged ones so the builders have a stack of bricks to start with. Damaged bricks seemed to predominate but this is not altogether bad because I now have a stack of them that I can use on the garden walls with out feeling guilty.

Yesterday we found that heavy rain over night had reduced the building site to mud so the man in charge called work off for the day. Edd and I were rather grateful because things had been going so fast that unresolved issues had begun to accumulate. We were able to use the day to buy things we needed, look at the ceiling in a hall Al wanted us to visit and then call in on the office to discuss the remaining issues.

Al had a beautiful sample of marble that he has recommended for my kitchen bench top. It had an old fashioned silky feel which I thought was fantastic and I liked the pale grey colour. We have looked at various ceiling types and personally I still prefer plain white plaster. Barry thinks we may be able to deal with noise and have this effect.

OTHER NEWS

How lucky am I to have friends who are prepared to put up with difficult conditions and visit us. I have so enjoyed the days that Lucy and Ron have spent here. Lucy told me such interesting things about life in Hong Kong that I now wish that she had a blog and I could find out what happened next. She has a great sense of humour so many of her stories were very funny. Edd enjoyed talking to Ron and so when they left we could swap accounts and enjoy it all again.

We took them up into the forest and were so relieved at how much things are recovering. We even went down to the track at the cascades where the granite rocks were vibrating with the force of the falls. Lucy helped me with the animals and we picked blackberries but mostly the men concentrated on building. With meals out and all this activity time went too fast.