What we do when the sun shines

What we do when the sun shines is, of course, put down five and a half cubic meters of concrete. It took several weeks to get the three locations prepared, which was hard work but not very interesting - which is why I've posted nothing recently.

But at 2.30 on Friday afternoon the lorry arrived, and started manoeuvring to get into place for the first pour. This usually results in a lot of churned-up mud, but today, despite all the rain last week, it wasn't bad at all:



The first load went into the stables at the end of the hangar, straight out of the chute, where Paul and his father spread it out. The second went by barrow to the bit of terracing by the barn, and this warmed us up. But what got us all really hot was the last load that went into the farmhouse cellar.

This needed a number of executive decisions:



and quite a bit of careful consideration:



With an occasional break when the lorry hiccupped and the concrete got held up inside:



From time to time it was possible to stand up and stretch:



The concrete then had to be tamped, and afterwards smoothed off with a large plastic float, getting it just at the right point when it was firm enough to walk on but still soft enough to be levelled.

The end results were pretty good. The stables now look like this:



with conduits for the eventual cabling set into the concrete floor, hopefully in the right places for the long workbench that will occupy the whole of the right hand wall.

The cellar was previously earth sloping gradually up away from the doors. Now it is three separate flat areas, one of them very small right by the doors which inconveniently open inwards. It now looks like this:



and it seems a lot bigger than it was before (though strictly it must be smaller, after putting in a couple of tons of concrete). Probably that's because for the first time in 80 years the cellar has been cleared of all the junk. Just the septic tank and the stairs showing. The stairs now have a new concrete bottom step instead of a surprising large drop after the last wooden tread.

And the final bit of terracing looks like this:



This morning we spent some time sifting and shifting the pile of earth to get a level surface, ready for seeding. That should get finished off tomorrow.

It was very heavy work (my back is still complaining) but it's a great improvement in all three places. There'll be quite a bit more to do fitting out the workshop, and some small bits of additional home made concrete to finish off each of the locations, but there's a real feeling of achievement.