My first wheelbarrow

It feels like one of those rites of passage - the purchase of your first wheelbarrow.  Not one of those namby-pamby garden wheelbarrows but a large solid "contractor's wheelbarrow", built to endure the rigours of a building site.

The scaffolders' version!

This is my wheelbarrow

This was required to facilitate the rendering on both the chimneys, which need some considerable attention.  I had the task of removing the old render, some of which fell off and some just refused.  The issue is that you can damage the brickwork if you hit too hard, as the lime mortar is softer than the cement render.  You can also hit your own hand, graze your knuckles under the chisel, and generally just get VERY tired by hitting a chisel with a 4lb mallet about 10,000 times in one day whilst perched on the top lift of the scaffolding.

Phil the Plasterer asked me to get the materials for the rendering.  Now, this sort of thing always happens with me, even though I asked for clarification, so I shouldn't have been surprised this morning when the lorry bringing the requested seven bags of "fine washed rendering sand" actually arrived bearing seven one-ton bags!  I did not have either a need or a place to keep one such bag, so I had to make a trip myself to the aggregate yard to allow the work to proceed.  This was an experience which Jane and I shared with some trepidation; it is the sort of place that you don't want to go to unless you have been there before.  However, they were very nice about the morning's error (whoever's fault it was), and sold me 250kg of sand for £6 (NB they weigh the vehicle in and out - seems odd in a car).  Phil assured me that their rendering sand is the best there is, but then added that the 250kg of sand was an under-purchase!  Well, I could hardly have got any more sand in the bags, and how was I to know how much sand I had put into the bags myself, shovelled from a pile of 500 tons?  (Top tip: when carrying open bags of sand in your car, do make sure that they are securely stowed and do not move when you brake.)

The rear chimney has had the top six courses rebuilt with "engineering bricks", and has also been fitted with four new chimney pots (excuse scaffolding poles):

It all looks so new, but I'm sure it will weather.  I discovered a new word during this job: the mortar around the actual chimney pots is called "flaunching".  I would have liked to use reclaimed pots but frankly it is very unlikely that one will find anything suitable which is serviceable, having seen the damage on the ones we removed.  Mind you, I was a bit surprised that they were so bad that the brickies threw three of them off the roof onto the hardcore pile!  Not even good enough for garden ornaments, it seems.

So, today the front chimney had its scratch coat done by Phil, while I spent a while reclaiming about 35 of the bricks from the same pile for eventual use in our extension, which saved about £15 and made me feel good.  The top coat will be done tomorrow, the roof is now almost half slated, and hopefully we shall see some major progress this week with the rest of the lead work being completed.

A highlight this week was when I carried a roll of lead up the 10 metre ladder, discovering at the top that it weighed 37kg, and wishing I hadn't felt the need to compete with Chris the roofer.  A day later he asked for help in carrying 400 slates up, 20 at a time.  After four goes with only 15 each time, I gave up and watched him.  That was when I discovered that he is less than half my age!