Concreting: Day Three

Before breakfast and the weather forecast was for rain at 4pm.  "Let's start early."  said David.  So we did.  The Gazelle was brought into town by his Mum and I picked him up whilst David started making the concrete.  Half way through we realised that a ton of concrete mix was nowhere near enough.  I ordered some more.  Would it come this afternoon?  Possibly.  It didn't.  However The Gazelle wondered whether the pile of coarse sand and stones that I had inside my gate would do.  Duh.  How could I have forgotten about that?  So we used them but when we had used all the cement and mixture we were left with this tiny bit to do:

Pondering:

A phone call to a friend up the road and we were in business again.

I'd show you a picture of the final result but for the fact that at 4pm the rain started and we had hastily to cover all the new concrete up before the rain did too much damage. When the rain stops I'll show you.

There's a Front Coming Through

Yesterday was a day off from concreting.  Involuntarily.  A weather front with gales and torrential rain came through.  We are hoping for better today although the forecast is far from good.

Concreting: Day Two

Today I felt my age.  My right knee has passed its use by date (I'm not complaining because I brought it on myself: I used to be a fencer and fencing coach).  It doesn't give me a lot of pain but it does make lifting heavy concrete or wheeling wheelbarrows down slopes rather difficult and very tiring.  Fortunately David did most of the really heavy work and his thirteen year old grandson went up and down the slope with the wheelbarrow like a gazelle.  Not that, I have to admit, I've ever seen a gazelle pushing a wheelbarrow.  Today we managed two panels of concrete.  The cement mixer is effective but doesn't have a very big capacity.

Yes, something or things did crawl across the first panel!

Concreting Day One

Yesterday was the day for doing the shuttering for the area between the house and the toolshed which I am intending to concrete after I had to dig up the previous concrete to lay a new drain.  Today the plan is to start the concreting.  Why, today of all days, did the wind have to drop and the midges descend in their thousands?

David surveying the afternoon's work