lots of action(0ld post)

10.3.2012

BUILDING NEWS

The massive spurt of activity has continued. The great ground guzzler got into gear and all the spare soil that was stored in heaps and below the dam is now in the mound covering the new house. This was not at all straightforward because various layers of drainage cell, geo-fabric and foam insulation had to be put in at the correct levels.

Al came to inspect the work because he wanted the finished mound to look right and echo the shapes in the surrounding hills. He has not seen the completed job so I am not sure how well we have done at achieving this. The earth moving gang have been superb. They kept up the enormous concentration needed to move heavy stuff in constricted places faultlessly. The only casualty is poor Skiddy who was used to do the levelling work on top of the roof and who now has a serious bearing issue. (Don’t ask me the details; I’m not mechanically minded).

The diggers also dug the ditches for all the services. Amazingly the telephone lineman arrived exactly on schedule and we now have working phone points in the new house! Today Charlie is down the ditches sorting out the electricity supply lines and we have the pipes here ready for the water. The idea is that everything goes in the same service trenches.

Gary arrived on Friday and is well into building the inglenook seats. Steve is doing a work of art in the shower room and we have measured up for the linen press cupboard. With so much going on I am often asked if I am excited. It is hard to explain why not.

I can only make a rough analogy of our mental state by comparing it to a person undergoing treatment for a terrible disease. The shock, when the disease happens is life changing, but the treatment is actually more wearing and painful. Towards the end of the treatment one is only cheered by the hope that the pain will end and a real healing can begin. You know that your former life, work and ambitions are changed but there is no way to know exactly what the future will be like.

We hope that all the suffering we are experiencing will mean that we will not have our life threatened by future fires. We are aware that there are no guarantees, but we have done everything we can think of to try and have a future free of worry. We are now totally at the end of our coping skills and just pray we have the fortitude and energy to last until the building process is complete. At this stage we both still feel that it is better not to pin too much hope onto what life will be like afterwards.