Irresponsible person on a dumper

Chris, who knows what he's doing, helped me by putting in the reinforcing steel for the back retaining wall on a Thursday after work. There was no photographer on hand to document this stage. Saturday dawned with the concrete delivery arriving at 8.45 instead of "between 9 and 11". Chris was going to drive the dumper for us, but he was called in to work, so I took the job. With no training, I did nearly turn the thing over by driving backwards down Dave's terraces and through the hedge into the street below, but no equipment or workers were damaged, just one ego.

Paul arrived to lend some credibility to our work force and we placed the 3 cubic meters in no time. There was about a 1.2 ton left over, but we put that on the floor excavation as blinding. Better than coming up short - I would have heard about that one longer than the dumper incident.


Ian came from Creedy Park and helped throughout, especially keeping the tone lighthearted during the more exciting moments and taking his turn running the poker (vibrator) throught the concrete. Karen demonstrated her skill with a garden rake keeping the concrete moving around the trench. We think we levelled the foundation to plus/minus 10mm ( 1/2 inch) which should do. The Durisol blocks arrive tomorrow morning - this time I have arranged for a machine and a man to drive it - this time a telescopic handler to unload the pallets and deliver them up to the studio site. I think Karen will lose another shrub or two making a wide enought access for this new machine.