The roof joists were waiting for us as we arrived on-site this morning, so we split into three groups: finishing the walls; continuing work on the front steps (affectionately known as the patio) and now the roof trusses.
On the roof team, there was plenty of head scratching as we tried to work out how to check our 15 degree angle. Eventually, we dug up a little bit of O level maths from a very little used corner of our brains and came up with a scheme that seemed to work. My grandfather was a carpenter all his life and I tried not to embarrass him too much, but we would have got on a lot quicker if the promised circular saw had turned up. In the end we blunted our only two saws cutting through some very wet timber, but managed to make a pattern trusse and cut all of the smaller lengths.













The brickies managed to finish the main block work and put wall plates in place ready for the roof trusses on Sunday. The patio continues to grow and will clearly make a grand entrance.

It was a beautiful day in the Valley and our first opportunity to work on a genuine builders’ tan. My legs are looking quite brown from an area around the knee to the top of my boots, but that may be just block dust and cement.

We were visited by the Gogos again today as John R had kindly provided the ingredients for an extra stew, as he felt that they were really too hungry yesterday. The Gogos treated us to an impromptu Zulu ‘thank you’ dance, which was wonderful to watch.

















































Tomorrow we need to get hold of a circular saw so that we can finish off the roof trusses properly on Sunday. Tomorrow we also need to do some serious washing. The smell in my corner of the room is not good and I’ve run out of clean socks, so it isn’t going to improve on it’s own.
This has been a quick, blog as we’re dashing off to watch the England game in the FanZone on the beach front. Where’s the vuvuzela?