29 Jan 09

Sun, glorious sun!

After days of cloud, rain and house shuddering winds we decided that we would just have to brave it out and get over to the 'ship to do some work. And what a lovely surprise we had because today the sun shone for all it was worth and the wind was a gentle breeze - aaaah.

Our first job was to meet the new town planner at Sorbas. Dave had been talking to Pablo about what the next step was in the planning process. Unfortunately he then went on extended leave before we could confirm what was needed. Luckily Alejandro, the new guy, was great. He's all for eco building and, after much discussion, worked out what we now need to do to complete the approval process. It means getting together drawings, costs and construction details plus water, power and heating specs for each of the buildings. We can do this in stages as long as we get the first ones in before the year is up on our planning permission. So, back to the drawing board we go....!

Pinned down at last

With the high winds we've been having it's been a bit of a worry that the roof beams for the greenhouse section weren't nailed down. We strapped them in place but it was more the thought that the front carpentry was still, in effect, only being held up by two skinny temporary pieces of wood. Luckily nothing had moved even a millimetre. So we set about getting the beams pinned in place. Below is Dave bashing in the rebar on the first of the beams....

.....tidying up the pre-drilled hole....

....and cutting the rebar to size....

I did a very good job as goffer today, fetch this, turn on that, sunbath, oops, I mean hold the ladder. By the end of the day we (and I use that word very loosely) had pinned down 5 beams. Doesn't sound like much but there's a lot more work to it than it sounds.