Day 18 The roof, the whole roof and nothing but the roof  

Posted by Sam Woollard

You may not have noticed it but I have changed the numbering of the days in the titles, when I printed out the entire blog for Hilary last night I realised that I had missed a few days out in the sequence so I have renumbered them all. Rest assured that you have not missed a day as I have so far religiously written this up every night. What it does mean of course is that everything that has been done so far has occurred over the past 18 working days, that is quite an achievement by our gang of four.


As the title suggests the only work today has been on the roof and we are beginning to get the overall shape of the extension. Inside, the old study has been gutted and the door that was shown in last night's blog has been completely removed, I can't get inside to show you a picture as the entrance has been blocked up, it appears that Tom is concerned about our safety too.

Today's first picture shows our new support pole, the one that was supposed to be wooden but is now a round metal one. Its sole purpose is to support the overhanging roof and we hoped that we would be able to walk around either side of it to get to the garden, just looking at the side nearest the heathers though makes me think that this will be difficult. And no, we are not moving that damn stone wall back closer to the leat! We can only hope the concrete plinth that they have built for it to sit into is below the level of the path or we will be tripping over it each time that we go round the corner. It may not look much but it is actually a major step forward in the construction of the roof and it is where that lovely gable end will be supported.


The second picture is as close to seeing the gable end as you will get for a while, only the final two rafters are missing and then the cross pieces can go in. It does give an idea of how it will look when finished though. If this blog seems a bit bitty tonight it is because I am watching England play Brazil in a football match at Wembley while I am typing, it has the added attraction of Beckham and Owen both playing for England for the first time since the World Cup in 2006. It is only a friendly but should be a good test for Steve McClaren's management abilities. So far it is 0-0 with neither side having any obvious advantage.


The weather today has been great for the builders and while they have been beavering away Hilary has been doing some gardening, she has trimmed back quite a few of the bushes and will no doubt be having a bonfire in the next few days. Tomorrow she is off to Liz's for the day to help out with tidying up their big living room, sad to say I am still struggling with this virus that has left me feeling week and wobbly. I did go to see the doctor, a new one that I am not keen on, our doctor for the past 20 years or so has retired, but all this new doctor suggested was that I rest and wait it out and keep sticking nasal drops in me to try and clear my blocked sinuses. I do hope that it works soon as the toothache that accompanies this sinus infection is getting to be a chronic pain but not in the backside!


I have included one final picture in an attempt to show another angle of the roof which may give a better clue as to how big this extension really is. It also shows Hilary in the foreground and she was doing a bit of tidying up so that the next time that I mow the grass I don't wreck the mower blades on hidden pieces of rock and timber. On the far left of the picture you can see where Hilary has cleared out a huge amount of the pile of soil that was dug out from the footings, still quite a lot to shift but it is gradually going down.
So with the score still 0-0 after 28 minutes I will sign off for now and start up again on Monday night - have a good weekend.

This entry was posted on Friday, 1 June 2007 at 19:36 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

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