Cold and Wet Volume 1

The turf roof on the wee shed needed a bit of watering and it's raining heavily now for the first time in a couple of weeks and enough to stop me laying blockwork on the footings for the shed/workshop. This is 6 x 4.8m. It has taken us ages to do the founds as there is groundwater seeping up through the rock and constantly filling the trenches. In one 6m length there are two 1m sections of rock with sand and silt between with beach boulders and pebbles. This is the hardest area to work on as it is so wet and the substrate is so variable. We even put in a drain under the founds! The shuttering is now off most of it and blockwork has commenced. Made a mess of a short run last evening - somehow knocked a block out of true and it set out all the others by just too much to correct on the next course -so out they came - only half a dozen but annoying. This is a peril of working late (it was 9:30 p.m.), getting tired and losing concentration. Lots of object lessons here of the more haste less speed variety. I am not really a wet trades person. We can do 30-40 batches in our wee mixer in half a day but I'm not sure I am fit enough to do that day after day. We need over 1000 mixes by the end of August and a similar number of blocks laid. That is about 60 days work in the next 100 - at my very slow pace though we will get some help from friends. Between us we got the founds within about 4mm over the 22m of footings, and the corner blocks were within 3mm on the diagonals. Still I prefer working with wood - it's easier to be accurate - and can't wait till the structure is up and watertight and we are working inside. I like joinery and electrics and plumbing.

The angel of 12v batteries was not on our side the other day as we had three flat at the same time - two on the JCB and one on the Land Rover. So we lost time there too. We are still having vehicle problems, it seems constantly. THis is the way of the self builder - everything goes wrong.

Can recommend Toolstation for a good range, keen prices and fast free delivery even to this outpost.

Now I'm not one to express my political opinions (as they are well off most people's radar) but I have just met a CANDIDATE in a parliamentary election - a real one !!!. Now the last and only time this happened was in 1979 when the Tories were trying to get Waveney Valley - one of their famous wets Jim Prior and it was really his wife and not the man himself who rolled up in his/her Range Rover to canvass. I was painting my garden gate and hence Tory fodder as I was obviously an owner occupier. This time it was the Lib Dem candidate and current MP for Argyll and Bute who was actually on Gigha on the eve of poll. Alan Reid was polite not pushy, did not directly ask for my vote, and otherwise answered my questions about a hung parliament with candour. Now there are less than 100 voters on Gigha so it is quite something for our wee island to get this individual attention. Eve of poll I'd expect him to be in Campbeltown or Lochgilphead (or other big metropolis). I am impressed that the only time since I first voted in 1974 I have actually seen a candidate on the stump and it is in the most remote place I have lived from the centre of political life in Westminster. I have met a few MPs - Michael Meacher when I was a teacher in Oldham and on strike in 1985. I also met Stephen Byers at a rally in the mid 80s (wow, what a smoooth talker and arrogant even then) when he was leader of North Tyneside council before he was an MP and Giles Radice who was my MP when I lived in County Durham. The Labour Scottish minister Des Browne came to Gigha a couple of years ago too on his summer tour of the Highlands.
Anyway we already voted last week as we have postal votes.

Managed to get 20 bags cement in back of Ford Focus estate as the Cabstar is awaiting a new starter motor

free bird

Our friends Helen and Gary had the chance to take a micro-light flight around Gigha just before they got married yesterday. Helen took a a few pictures of our plot and here they are. We have moved on quite a lot since.

This picture shows the plot in centre foreground with Ardailly Mill down by the sea bottom right and Mill Loch central with the east side of the island and Sound of Gigha in the background

Ardailly is in the foreground with the track curving round to the plot and the Mill top right

Our layout shows here with the wee shed adjacent to the track with its turf roof, the driveway flanked by beach boulders stands out and the big shed footings to the right hand side of the large aggregate pile. Stock piles to the left hand fenceline of the plot. Our trial excavations for the roundhouses show exactly where they will be. Yellow blob = non functioning JCB. The full story of our dealings with second hand JCB salesmen will be detailed shortly - once we have checked the wording for any defamatory comments.

Here is a pic of the happy couple too.....