It's been all hands on deck this week to finish our foundations...finally, after all the delays. All pretty chaotic but we got it done. Many incidents involving lots of water in our holes, lots of mud that needed to be got out so we could fit our rebar cages in, still having to cut the cages down as we couldn't dig that deep by hand with post-hole-diggers, levelling sonotubes, weird bracing, tangled strings and all the other accoutrements of first time builders. Then the big moment...the concrete truck arrives...


...and the first hole is an inevitable mess, too much water left in it, sploshing cement everywhere, looks of horror from the team. But luckily things improved after some hasty pumping-out of water, which alas had the side-effect of de-levelling some of our sonotubes and tangling some rebar (prompting a lot of 'why didn't we think of that earlier' type remarks) and it was wheelbarrows and shovels all round.


Finally, it was all done before sundown, J-bolts set and only one or two (or three or four) piles off so much that they're going to need a good shim at the next stage! Foundation initiation complete, and time for a beer and a debrief.


But the drama wasn't over...back home I was de-concreting myself in the shower when my housemate yells that he's looking a possum in the eye. Sure enough, I run out dripping in my towel to the kitchen and there the little thief and pillow-pisser is, crouching on the shelf with the peanut butter and staring Phil out. I was about to freeze my butt off if I didn't jump back in the shower so I couldn't get a picture, but he was chased out roundly and with much cursing. Hopefully we won't wake up to more bumps in the night as he breaks another jar of jam for a while.

It's back to Eng-er-land tomorrow for real beer and dark pubs over Christmas...can't wait.