Day 9: Going up

Today we start going up! I had thought the slab needed time to dry but no, its walkable on, and to prove this the Pete and Paul take the spanning planks away and walk on it. It won't be up to full strength of course but then the first tier of wall won't be heavy either. They tell us what I had sort-of already realised, that of course they knew about the shower drain, but this has to be into the foul water not the soakaway, so the nice shiny new slab is of course OK. D goes out to watch their preparations to start the wall up while I breakfast: as they say, nice to be building not breaking. M makes them some tea...

At Ians, I sign the letter appointing our party-wall expert.

Going to get E at 3:30 I pass Paul on his bike and Pete in his van knocking off for the day: well fair enough, its friday and about to start raining again. At home, find the wall in the state you see it, with new brick in place and the concrete blocks keyed in nicely: it can't be coincidence that 3 bricks is one block. It all looks good work to me, shame it will all be covered up under render. You can see the darker old bricks and a thin line of spacers underneath the new stuff. In the background are the wooden frames, I presume sized to the windows that they will build the openings for.