April 18th

More of the same as yesterday, however it seems we are no longer friends- I start prepping the study, go to fetch a tool, then see that Dad has decided to go it alone, laying down the pipes in the kitchen solo ( I have been replaced by a bottle of sun cream(-well, we won't need it today!), a pencil and an off cut of plastic pipe. interesting... but he makes it work- and alot less noisily than when I'm involved!) Nothing's been said, but after tea break we slip into our teamwork routine again and have a very productive day! Go Team Waite! I have a sudden realisation today( I had one the other day when the roof was made waterproof that half days were a thing of the past :-( . ) :That the screed is being poured fri am, and we can't walk in the house until it's dry, i.e. after the weekend...which means...we can't work in the house at all on friday... which means ( hopefully) that there'll be a giant portion of cheesy chips, and 4 pints waiting for us in a pub on friday....

April 17th

Rain stopped play for the roofers, though now the entire roof is felted and batoned, dad and I can carry on. Rather jealous that they're off down the pub though- hmmm. Dad and I in a system now- I clean the floor- chiselling off excess concrete, sweeping, lay down the radon barrier, measure the insulation and mark where he needs to cut, then we lay it all down. attatching the skirt is a 2 man job as it keeps sticking to everything bar where you want it- so I go ahead, un rolling it and peeling off the back while Dad sticks it in place (this is a shall we say cosy? experience in the downstairs toilet) I lay down the egg boxes, cutting some to fit. Dad preps all the pipe work, drilling holes where it'll go through walls and plumbing it into the manifold. We then team work laying down the underfloor heating pipes in a pattern more or less to the plans detailed by the company. A few heated moments, laughs and mishaps later- involving trodden on fingers, broken nobbles, pipes dropping on heads etc... and we still get on, and it seems like it'll work.

April 16th

Funny thing I realised today- I was upstairs in the bedroom and overheard Mick n Tony shouting out measurements on the roof: I work in centimetres, Mick in milimetres, Tony in inches, whilst Dad prefers metres- it's a fudging miracle we got this far!! This week Dad and I are concentrating on the downstairs floor, as screed will be poured on fri am, so we need to have it cleared, radon Barrier down, insulation in, skirt attached( technical name by-passed me- maybe coz I wasn't listening....), egg boxes laid down ( not actual egg boxes, rather a plastic sheet with grooves for underfloor heating pipes- but that's dad's term for them) pipes laid down, plumbed into manifold, filled with water and pressure tested. No idea how long it'll all take as we're novices-here goes trying!

April 13th

Glad we (Dad and I) are working "indoors" now, as the heavens opened. Mick n Tony on the roof, so they came in and had a cuppa while the downpour subsided. Today Pops was sanding the beams, which I then varnished-as these'll be external oak beams. Mick N Tony had the last laught however, when they worked the afternoon in glorious sunshine as Dad and I were rained on inside whilst working- there's currently only membrane over the beams, not the whole roof, so the rain sits on upstairs floor, then finds its way though to us. lurvely!

April 12th

Today I spent sanding the oak beams, then waxing them. The belt sander really tested out my healing ribs in places ( at the top of the tower-reaching over the drop of death, and then downstairs- bending over backwards whilst sanding forwards as there's no space for my fat head inbetween the joists- apparently yoga would have been of use today) something I learnt today- I'm quite a good painter left handed. Ties in with the thing I learnt yesterday- I hammer better with my left than my right ( not messing around coz of boredom- more out of necessity in hard to reach places)

April 11th

The day of the oak beams: 5 man job - well technically- 4 men and a lady (scrap that) 4 men and me! The trusty3, Tony, and Dad's old uni buddy Phil- fresh over from Canada just to help us (you just can't get reliable english staff). Not too complex a task once we got a system going- we rehearsed first with a bit of 2 x 2! up the stairs, then it got tricky. First of all, we had to lift the heavy beams up onto the tower in the bedroom,whilst trying to not knock anyone off the tower whilst rotating the beam, then also trying to not let the beam come crashing down on Pop's head ( he's busy on the ground trying to balance a beam on a stick to push it up to us- circus acts with plates on sticks springs to mind as he's dancing around trying to keep it on the wood and centred before you remind yourself to focus!) then lift again in the hope that it'll just slide down into the tailor made niches... which they did eventually with some persuasion(some gentle- some not so much). The thing that freaked me out today was Phil and Tony jumping from the tower, out onto the scaffolding and onto pieces of wood that weren't yet fastened to the roof like spider monkeys!yeesh! someone get those boys some bananas! and someone pass me a D-R-I-N-K!! The afternoon was great- armed with a hammer and a bucket of nails I went round nailing the rafters that were placed for the vaukted ceilings into place. Come home time, and the clouds drawing nearer- we decide to cover up the oak beams to protect them by batoning on some membrane onto the roof- unfortunately- timing slightly off and we carried out the procedure in a galer with hailstones-NICE! membrane flying everywhere while we struggled to pin it down long enough to attach it. succeeded in the end- complete with a nice juicy whack of the hammer on my nail- typical! Can I go home please?!

April 10th

Fresh back after the bank holiday and 4 days off- I truly am spoilt! We "chuck up" the roof trusses- one at a time. this entails dad and I positioning them, tying them to a rope, then lifting them as high as poss, whilst Mick N Tony pull them up from the top floor. Then, go upstairs to stand on the plasterboard tower to guide the centre of the truss into place reading for nailing/hanging in the joist hanger. good exercise going up and down those stairs! Glad I made the most of my break!