And the earth moved!

At last, things are starting to happen 

After the demolition process had come to an end, it did not take Mother Nature long to re-assert herself over the summer months.

The September weather has been very kind to us so the ground works have progressed very well (so far). It was a very special moment in the first week of the month when the low loader trundled up the driveway to deliver the excavator.

Next came the ‘setting out’ and marking out of the footprint (which seemed huge at this stage). All the family suddenly appeared – they wanted to ‘walk through’ the rooms.

Yet more heavy plant arrived on another beautiful autumnal day. The driveway was fast approaching the ‘not fit for purpose’ stage.

Our soil is heavy clay and the water table is high so we have to pile to ensure that the structure can be safely supported. The piling team used the auger to drill 26 piling holes (each 13 metres deep). These were then filled with concrete and iron bars inserted before the concrete ‘goes off’ (set).

Driveway 

The driveway was in a very sorry state and we were very concerned that subsequent delivery lorries would break down the banks of the small stream on one side. Rod had the bright idea of sending the water down the middle of the driveway instead.

The stream was re-directed temporarily to avoid any water coming down before the top 15cm of the driveway surface was excavated to level it. A 1.5m channel was then dug in the middle of the driveway for the new position of the stream.

After that a layer of scalpings was put down.

Finally, Steve rolled the surface. Even Kevin the postman is very enthusiastic about the new surface.

Plan for October 

Position the shuttering and form the ground beams.

Paws for P.S.

Hello – Freddie, Moses and Layla here again!

Many kind readers have told us how much they enjoyed our tales about life in Hambledon with Mr Rod and SWhoMBO. In fact, we were so delighted with the feedback about our August update that we have come to the happy conclusion that maybe there is something to this blogging after all.

You will have seen from the entries above that there has been a general busy buzz of activity at Hazels during recent weeks. Indeed, on more occasions than we care to remember, we were quite unable to snooze quietly during the day after a heavy night’s roaming or hunting due to the noise of heavy plant on the move.

We all experienced a bit of a shock the other week and had to check whether Christmas had been brought forward this year. This is because we were astounded to discover one morning that, seemingly overnight, the Health and Safety goblins had descended upon our home turf  ‘to decorate’ the site with various information notices of many different hues. We have great sympathy for the poor old humans who can now only enter the property if they heed an enormous number of commands or regulations.

 

 

In the past month we have watched (generally from afar) the antics of the motley crews of ground and piling workers, and we have been particularly intrigued by their clothing. Does hard hat-wear and technicolour armour really count as fashion these days?  We also cannot believe how much tea and coffee they drink, and surely no one these days has so much sugar that the spoon stands up in the mug. And as for the chocolate biscuits………………..

However, we have great respect for them all, especially Steve (the main Lucas ground worker ) because he is so skilled with the excavator. When he marked out the footprint of the new house with blue paint we had to smile that evening at how excitable all members of the Edge family suddenly became (we think we may have mentioned before that they seem to be so easily pleased). But, not wanting to be left out, we too explored the whole layout. (In our opinion, Moses was only interested to learn about the location of the future cat food cupboard – Freddie and Layla)  

We were somewhat concerned to understand the location of the site office.

But, when we viewed it from the front, things were not what they seemed.

Ah, so this is where it is.

What’s Next?

At this precise moment we three don’t think we can be at all sure about this as project management looks likely to go the dogs. We wondered why Mr Rod and SWhoMBO skipped off so happily to the village shop on Saturday – for ‘a tasting’ they said.

Well, now we know and we have secretly photographed the evidence. They may well live in Vann Lane but do they really need to be encouraged to partake further of community spirit?