Brrr - It's a bit chilly for roof work...
Today's plan of starting to remove the old roof from the building that Dad and I are converting into a 2 bed cottage ended up being scotched due to a sudden snowfall. If truth be told we kind of expected it as the forecasts were looking a bit dismal on Friday, but, hey, they sometimes get it wrong so we stuck to the plan until we arrived to find a wet-snow covering, icy tiles on the roof and skies full of snow intermittenly heading our way. Putting up scaffolding and prancing about on the roof looked like a very dicey idea just from a safety point of view let alone opening up the building to potential indoor snowdrifts...
So we opted instead for building up the internal blockwork partition wall between what will be the kitchen and the new utility room. Still not much fun mixing mortar in the cold but the exercise soon warmed me up. We got the new wall toothed into the external wall and built up to about 6ft high before the mortar ran out. However, the weather was closing in again and we had to get back to the builders merchants before they closed for some stuff for tomorrow. This meant that there wouldn't be enough time to use another mix up. So we called it a day and packed up.
It often strikes me, when we do get 5 minutes for a coffee break in the van, staring out across the River Witham flood plain towards Horncastle and the Lincolnshire Wolds, beneath an ever changing 360 degree skyscape, just how much I enjoy living where I do and working out in the open (even with wet and cold) and really seeing the world *happening* around me.
Don't think I'll be trading in for a deskjob again any day soon.
Other news today - Got the ball rolling on the Archaeological Watching Brief for the new building plot (basically, because the house plot is somewhere where there *might* be some archaeology, the council planning permission said we need a boffin to record any findings while we're digging - it just so happens that the caller in the ceilidh band I play with is a *senior boffin* and is helping us to sort out the necessary paperwork..)
- Had a meeting with a professional hole digger on the new plot (actually a managerial hole digger bloke!). So that Annie and I can determine whether we can afford to build a basement on th enew house we need the necessary geotechnical survey to see what type of underground strata there are and what type foundations/basement construction type/groundwater management systems we are going to have to put in. Keep your fingers crossed for us that the results will allow us to do the basement - recording/rehearsal studio, projects room and kids play room really would all be better off down there.....
Feeling tired but having accomplished plenty today...
So we opted instead for building up the internal blockwork partition wall between what will be the kitchen and the new utility room. Still not much fun mixing mortar in the cold but the exercise soon warmed me up. We got the new wall toothed into the external wall and built up to about 6ft high before the mortar ran out. However, the weather was closing in again and we had to get back to the builders merchants before they closed for some stuff for tomorrow. This meant that there wouldn't be enough time to use another mix up. So we called it a day and packed up.
It often strikes me, when we do get 5 minutes for a coffee break in the van, staring out across the River Witham flood plain towards Horncastle and the Lincolnshire Wolds, beneath an ever changing 360 degree skyscape, just how much I enjoy living where I do and working out in the open (even with wet and cold) and really seeing the world *happening* around me.
Don't think I'll be trading in for a deskjob again any day soon.
Other news today - Got the ball rolling on the Archaeological Watching Brief for the new building plot (basically, because the house plot is somewhere where there *might* be some archaeology, the council planning permission said we need a boffin to record any findings while we're digging - it just so happens that the caller in the ceilidh band I play with is a *senior boffin* and is helping us to sort out the necessary paperwork..)
- Had a meeting with a professional hole digger on the new plot (actually a managerial hole digger bloke!). So that Annie and I can determine whether we can afford to build a basement on th enew house we need the necessary geotechnical survey to see what type of underground strata there are and what type foundations/basement construction type/groundwater management systems we are going to have to put in. Keep your fingers crossed for us that the results will allow us to do the basement - recording/rehearsal studio, projects room and kids play room really would all be better off down there.....
Feeling tired but having accomplished plenty today...