Week 6, day twenty-eight

Thursday, 3 March 2011

Slacking off, aren't I? Now I'm retro-blogging - trying to remember what happened last week because I didn't quite get to posting anything... I blame Mat - what's a post without pics? They're still on his fancy Rupert Murdoch-sponsored camera somewhere, I think. We'll just have to catch them up later. [[Ah, here's a couple...10/3]]

Pop-up pipes

So week 6 started out strong with the plumber and the concreters back on The Block along with the brickies - twas a hive of activity on Monday. Or was that Tuesday? Anyway, first the plumber had to dig through the fill and find his waste pipes, and pop them out the top again. See exhibit.

Back in the trenches

Then concreters were preparing things by digging trenches through the dirt fill where all the internal brick walls will be (these need extra concrete footings under the slab floor) and putting a neat layer of sand on top of the rest - don't ask me why, I've given up trying to figure out every detail (The Client Who Asked Too Much). It was kinda fun seeing where all the walls would be (still looked small, but not quite as small). The brickies were still working on the northern pergola wall, which meant that concreters decided to get around them via the neighbour's driveway as an access point to the back of our block for their digger.

Pergola wall in progress

It wasn't until I trudged up at the end of the day that I noticed that Peter's driveway, though never a masterpiece in landscaping, had now turned into something resembling our own mudpit.Hoping we weren't approaching a lawsuit yet, I sent a late-night email to Warwick checking that Peter was all good with this, in a hopeful kind of tone. Warwick was at the door early the next morning, assuring me that he and Peter have an understanding of sorts and that it's time to for me to take another deep breath. I think I used the term 'taking liberties' and he laughed jovially, saying that that's nothing in the world of builders taking liberties. Luckily I know Warwick is a nice, considerate, responsible type... I'd hate to have to reveal my clearly overly uptight tendencies to someone with more testosterone!

On Thursday we found out that both the concreter and the plumber are going on hols next week - which is slightly painful timing, as far as getting the slab down goes. We're hoping for excellent weather and a miracle or two before they disappear.