Merry Bloody Christmas

Late Dec 2010 / Jan 2011: Dave had to head back into the big smoke for a day or two so I got on to levelling out the dirt in the big shed for a retrofit slab. We'd originally planned to floor it with bricks but realised much later that it would be very difficult to both get and keep it level. Hindsight says we should have poured a slab there first up...hindsight's grouse!

I dug a hole

top quality formwork

 Then came the clanger: Dana called from Melbourne after a horrible night of liquid out at each end. She was feeling very ill and had her first sick day from work in years. I cleaned up the site, packed the ute and headed home pronto. Doctor's visit next day didn't reveal anything specific and we were due to drive 5-6 hours to Swifts Creek for the full Last family clan Christmas. We made it next day (XMAS day!) and put Dana straight to bed. Found a much better doctor in Omeo, who managed to diagnose nothing less than Salmonella poisoning...sheesh! Some hard core antibiotics and several more days of rest and fluid finally kicked the bug by the time we came back to the city pad. Big bummer is, we were in the Garden of Eden with plentiful fruit trees going berserk and lashings of fine foodstuffs and poor Dana couldn't stomach any of it. Boooo....

Anyway, back up to 'Bogie to do what we can while Dana recovers. Dave came up to lay the final sheets but we still have cleaning up and flashing to do later on.

fully sheeted...worth the wait

My brother Nick + Shirley + Caitlin + Jessica also came up with my mum for a few days and we got Nick & Shirl collecting rocks while Dana cleaned them and I soldiered on with the shed.

Me n Nick

Nick & Dana scrubbin

pow-wow

like a pro job ;)

 

Meanwhile, I'd been chasing up the supply of concrete blocks that I'd had quoted in December as being OK for supply during the first week of January. Well, no show Friday...many calls...promised Monday...no show Monday...more (somewhat testy) calls...promised Tuesday...no show...mmmmmmm, grumpy. Normally I'd just suck it down but we had Steve the brickie coming over from Swifts Creek in the truck and I'd had to keep delaying him.  Sure didn't want to miss his help with block-n-rockwork...the man's seriously good at it. So we go into town for supplies and I get a call from the local haulage company that they've been lumped with 4 pallets of concrete blocks for us. Having dealt with them before with great success, I could finally smile. Next day they arrived and they had the cutest forklift arrangement that I've seen anywhere.

drive to site forward...then flick the magic switch and load backwards!

looked kinda wrong and creepy with no-one at the drivers seat

...but sure worked well.

By the way, it's raining again...:) But we did have some pretty cool clouds the other day.

mmmm...fluffy