week four ...

monday 8th e.on arrive to connect the underground cables. our first little triumph, over six months later we finally have clear skies and no obstruction to the crane delivering the oak frame! the site somehow looks bigger, as if someone has lifted the lid off it! we all go over to admire the lack of power lines. tuesday 9th - friday 12th a very quiet yet frustrating week on site waiting for the plinth bricks. the builders merchants still haven't confirmed if they can do the specials in time and keep trying to convince us to use the 'cut and shut' option, where the larger PL3.2 bricks are trimmed to size and then re-faced. we still think it would be a mistake as the frost may pop the fronts of the bricks off and insist on proper bricks. i'm finally given a delivery date of next monday after four visits and numerous calls to the merchants. on friday I get a surprise call from a delivery driver asking for directions to the site for a brick load, I zoom over to meet him only to find that they have re-sent the exact same pallet of PL3.2 plinth bricks I refused last week! I finally loose it with the merchants when they tell me that the bricks won't actually arrive till next friday. we will certainly be shopping elsewhere in future. at least the quiet week has allowed me to catch up on my 'proper' job and all the build paperwork. I arrange for the water board to inspect, accept the electric connection quote, chase all other quotes and request door and window catalogues. the weekend the weather is good so we decide to spend the weekend building a brick chamber for the temporary electric connection and working on the fence - well at least that was the plan until chris tripped on nothing and sprained his ankle. we visited Ross hospital on saturday and spent most of sunday waiting for an x-ray at hereford hospital, it's not broken, but still will probably take 6 weeks to mend - and just a day later chris has already used up all my sympathy reserves.

Wildwood Self Build Diary