What an excellent time off I had, absolutely no rest but it was certainly packed with lots to do.

Our crew change was late again and I made it home on the Sunday, which is all right as at least I was home. It was good to walk in to the shed and make my way into the flat inside, as even though it needed a good clean from the last month of being empty it was my home, a good feeling for some one who has been a nomad for so much of his life.

Sorting through mail and giving the flat a bit of a quick sweep soon had me feeling comfortable, once I had the sky TV up and running I knew I was home.

Went for a walk down to where the house site is and noted that quite a bit had been done since I was last home. All the reinforcing was in place for the slab and looked to be ready for the final pour. The pier holes for the rest of the house were all dug and it looked good. I was excited about the progress but feeling tired from work and not too enthused about getting my hands dirty just yet.

I made a few phone calls and found out from my friend Simon that the slab for my house was to be poured tomorrow, Monday morning! So I was to be in the thick of the construction right at the beginning, I had hoped for a couple of days where I could get my head from being at sea to being ashore but no such luck.

Monday went smoothly and the slab was poured with out a hitch, lot of work particularly with the wheel barrow work for filling in the pier holes. What a great site seeing the base of the house in situ gave a truly positive feeling within.

For the next four days I was watering the concrete twice and sometimes three times a day to keep the slab surface from drying out too quickly. In between that it was being busy making plans for the next stage, which was the concrete block walls to be laid. I had arranged for my friend Jon to come up from Sydney to resume his old trade as a brickie and looked forward to seeing him, he is very good company and never short of interesting, sometimes way out there conversations. Working with Jon would be another local brickie Wayne and with the two of them I would be the green labourer. If only I knew what I was too be up for!

Before the block walls could go up I had to dig a drainage trench around the outside of the slab where it cut into the hill. When it rains hard in this area the water just flows out of the ground, once you are through the topsoil there is a soft sandstone and lots of rock. The ground was hard and difficult to get out, I hired an electric jack hammer to help break up the clay, sandstone and rock, tough going and a lot of soil to remove but a vital job for that sleep easy at night when it is raining scenario.

The block walls went up quickly and we were really lucky with the weather, most days it stayed fine even though it usually looked as though it would rain. Only a couple of afternoons the skies opened up and gave us a drenching but the work was hardly affected. Long days though with most mornings starting at 0630 and working, when it was not raining well, into the night.

Within an amazing 10 days all the walls were up and it was time to core fill the open blocks. The day I had booked the concrete pump and trucks did not start out well. The concrete pump operator contacted me twice to ask if I was still going on with it as it was raining heavily inland. The sky where we were was overcast and did have that look of rain but it was still high cloud and I was determined to get the job done. As it was the rain held off until it was finished and as we were cleaning up after the concrete pour it started with a vengeance. Nice feeling sitting in the shed listening to the rain drumming down knowing the work was completed.

I was so relieved that we had completed the job on time and in good order, there were many things that could have held us up but it was not to be. I could feel my body starting to relax. I was pretty tired from my exertions as a labourer, 16 tonnes of concrete block was laid 3 tonnes of sand and I was not in shape for that kind of work. I was however very thankful that I had started an exercise program months before as it allowed me to keep up the pace though only just.

 

 

There were still lots of jobs to be done before I could move on from the block walls. The outside of the retaining walls needed cleaning up and all the gaps pointed so that there was a smooth surface for the water proofing to be painted on. The trench around the outside needed cleaning up and certainly the slab and the general work site needed a good straighten up. Slow tedious work but very much needed so that I could get on with the next stage, which was erecting the steel frame.

I also needed to get ready to go back to work. Definitely did not feel that enthusiastic about returning to sea as there was so much to still do but the mortgage does not pay itself. What was worse is I could feel a cold coming on and that I really did not need.