Murphy's Law of Self Building

If it can go wrong it will is the fundamental principle of Murphy's Law. If you are a self builder it will go wrong at the worst possible time - so the tractor got rolled just an hour from finishing the footings, and the JCB has a fuel leak from the lift pump filter and I still can't get the gasket to seal. The JCB also needs new seals on the dipper ram and I didn't get it sorted when I had the chance. Today's problem -  that wasted four hours is the pull start on the wacker plate. We need this going full time at present to compact the backfill on the big roundhouse which is currently being dropped in by JCB and spread by Andy in his mini-digger in 150mm sandwiches. All was going well and then the spring pinged on the pull start - not easy to get back in, and then the fixing screw was unthreaded and so it is kaput anyway. Friday afternoon means no spares till Monday - thankfully we managed to borrow another wacker plate but not till 5:30 this afternoon. The good news is that we ran out of aggregate and backfill but I am digging out a fantastic borrow pit of sand and gravel (36 cubic metres) which has much better material than the stuff we were paying for....and at least the weather is good. Tomorrow is the island raft race so an afternoon off.