The trusses arrived yesterday, along with the crane, and due to not sleeping well and pain in my shoulder going down into my arm, I decided to spend the day at home yesterday - which meant that I got to watch all the exciting things going on at the house. I think that the problem with my shoulder, stems from having a year 10 pupil (male) fall against me in the corridor after assembly on Monday, because it didn't start hurting until about 10.30am - the corridors at school are narrow, and with all the building work going on at school, there is a limit to where pupils can exit and enter the buildings to get to their lessons. So, the corridors were crowded, there was pushing and shoving going on, and as a result, a pupil fell against me, and bruised my left arm. However, it's the right side that is aching - the same side that always aches. Never mind that for now - I'm trying to keep going so that I forget about the discomfort.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome someone to the family - her name is Maisie Grace, and she's my niece! The daughter of Charlotte and Shaun (Charlotte, my stepsister), was born on Wednesday morning, at 11.05am, weighing in at 5lb 11oz - congratulations to the proud parents, the new grandparents, and welcome to Maisie! Of course, there is a quilt in progress for her!
On to the job in hand - updating you with the details of the house. I might try exploring another website later, to upload more photos - to give you a slide show of them, as I took lots yesterday. I was that excited by it all, and Keith had given me orders to give him a full account when he got home yesterday, that I took 90 photos and 5 or 6 movie clips. I was excited when I saw the crane go past the house, and then when I saw the trusses go past the house, when you could see through the roof, when the roof was no more - it was all just too exciting! (I know, I'm sad - but hey - I haven't been able to see much of the school being built, and I am finding the whole process really interesting - both school and house). I made notes of the times as well, what was going on, and some of the photos look exactly the same - it's just that parts of them show the trusses going past the house - and so on.
The photo on the right shows the crane at the back of the house manoeuvring into position. If you enlarge the picture (click on it, and it should enlarge), you can see the trusses going past the house - the gap between our house and the white house on the left. The crane is the red thing, and you can see where the roof is coming off on the right hand side.
The crane arrived at 8.56am, and the roof trusses at 9.01am (I did tell you that I found it all quite exciting, and have become really quite 'sad' - a bit of an anorak in describing it all, taking notes and so on!)
Here you can see the trusses on the lorry - don't they look big! Mind you, they have to be - they are the side of our bedroom and our living room. Also on the lorry is more wood, to be used for attaching trusses up, putting them in the primary positions, so that they are attached and not falling over. Also on the lorry are our velux roof windows.
I took most of the photos from the flat - standing on the balcony. The photo on the right was taken from the car park. I was thinking about sitting in the car park for most of the day, but during the period in which I was sat down there, not alot happened, and it was quite chilly as well. This photo shows the crane well. Nathan was in the church car park from 7am, making sure that no-one parked there, so that the crane and lorry could come in without any problems.
Here on the left, you can see no roof - the roof has come off, so I suppose you can't see the roof. Anyway, you know what I mean. You can also see the outer and inner walls on the left hand side - the men were removing the inner wall during the morning. You have to bear in mind that there are no ceilings upstairs either - there are only the walls in place. It looks like the power line pole is leaning a bit - I'm sure that has nothing to do with Joey scratching it and sharpening his claws on it!
The photo on the right shows the crane in an extended position - it started extending at 9.32am, and this picture shows Graham (our builder) getting a ride on the crane so that he can stand on top of the trusses, to fit the chain onto the trusses, to lift them off the truck. In this photo you can also see that the roof has gone entirely from the right hand side. This photo was taken at about 9.55am, at which time the trusses were moved off the lorry and onto the the car park.
Of course, I know that what you really want to see is how big the crane got - and so the photo on the left shows you. I sat in the clat all day, on a comfortable chair, just watching the events. This photo shows the first truss being listed - that was at 12.09pm. It took a bit of time getting the truss into exactly the right place, but by 1pm that chains were off. At 1.12pm I observed the crane swaying a huge amount - the winds started getting stronger, and it made the job more difficult, but by 6.30pm it was all done. There was a bit of a problem, three of the trusses on the right hand side were put in the wrong way round to start with - it took 45 minutes to get the trusses unattached, moved and then re-attached.
The final photo for today was taken later - at around 6.40pm. If you enlarge the photo, you can see Keith standing up on the roof. All the trusses that had to be made specially have been fitted, and some tarpaulin fitted over the open roof. The winds continued, and got worse during the night.
At around 3am this morning, Mathew phoned - he'd just woken up, up at the house, and saw that there was water coming in to the kitchen. He came back to the flat a little later. The winds continued to give us a restless night. This morning, Keith went to get some bread and some hot cross buns, and looked in on the house as well - the water that had come into the kitchen wasn't so bad. There have been chaps up at the house today, but they can't do very much due to the wind. Keith has heard that there were a couple of other mishaps yesterday - such as one of the beams (or was it a truss?), going down into the bath, as a result of the wind. We have heard that they will continue the work over the weekend, which is just as well. Apparently, we're going to be receiving our eviction notice soon - we have about 2 months of the lease left, and we really need the house to be finished. Next update - when there is something to update you with!
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