Today is the day that the big lorry arrives with a shit-load of building stuff. It wont get up the track so Ben, Julia and I are ready to unload it at the bottom. The consignment includes, wheelbarrows, 87m of shuttering wood, rebar mesh, 200m drainage piping, 200 bags of concrete, 15 tonnes of concrete mix and 5 tonnes of aggregate. Thankfully it had not planned to get the return ferry as this would have been impossible. We started off loading at 1 o’clock and finished at 6:30. We blocked the road and were interrupted by to-ing and fro-ing the lorry to allow cars past. We also had to manually lift 100 bags of concrete because the pallets were 1.5t and the tractor can only lift 1t. Ben did most of the driving and I waved my hands around a lot. Julia manhandled a spare pallet on her back from the plot to the road to take the extra concrete. I wish I’d taken a photo of her coming over the horizon with that. She looked a bit like an ant with a crisp!
Rob also brought over the digger today. Now known as Dougie the digger. It arrived on the boat having been mended on the mainland after Rob’s son buried it in a bog. Yes! It is possible to get a digger stuck so that is a warning for us. Dougie will live on site for the foreseeable and will be mainly driven by yours truly, tho Julia is very keen to acquire these skills too. I have no skills so let’s see how that goes!
While we anxiously waited for the delivery lorry, we discovered that one of the old bore holes the previous owners had installed was full of water. I set up a pumping rig and tried to draw out some much needed water. Unfortunately 12v marine pumps have their limit so I ordered the connections needed for my big 300W pump. Not holding out much hope though - its probably just rainwater.
The “machine” is proving itself to be brilliant but also now essential as our gas fire is on the blink. We are using the fire very sparingly until someone who knows what they are doing can come round. The only oddity is the coffee machine - it works fine on the generator but doesn’t like the voltage (220V) of the machine so we are using the generator each morning for our coffee. This is a bit of a routine now.
… apparently I even had some time for Tai Chi during the delivery!
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