Wheelbarrows and Contractors

The wheelbarrow is dead; long live the wheelbarrow!

I forgot to mention my new wheelbarrow.  The old one (above left) suffered fatal injuries at the hands of various contractors last year; clearly it wasn't as resilient as I first thought (in this link).  You can see the frame and bucket are only attached by the front brackets - all four welds have gone, as have the sides where the stiffeners are kinked.  I actually saw that happen when we were doing the floor last April (see this link) - a full load of mortar from the mixer was being settled down by shaking the whole thing from side to side and both sides suddenly went outwards by an inch or two with a kink in the middle of each side.  This was most noticeable as from then on the wheelbarrow scraped on both sides of the old French window as we pushed the next mix inside for Chris to lay.

Of course, the sideways action described above is unlikely to be in the design specification, and I'm sure that this action is what caused the welds to go as well.  Everyone who has mixed a load in my mixer has done it, so why don't the designers think of it?  It soldiered on but eventually died in the autumn, so I'll take it to the metal recycling somewhen - anyone want a used wheel in good condition?

Anyway, I needed to have a useable one so I found one of a different design (above right) which hopefully will prove more durable - and I don't intend to have any contractors misuse it!  It has already helped move several tons of materials from the front to the back and carried the mix for the floor in the extension, plus more recently the mixed lime plaster for the wall.

Talking of contractors, we have had possibly the last contractor job done this week, as Kurt the sparky has done the 2nd fix in the new extension; we now have light and power - and hence a working washing machine as well! When I've tidied up I will post a few photos of what it looks like, but right now it's rather messy.  I lost count a long time ago of the number of different workers there has been on this building in the last 16 months, but a quick count reveals at least 39 people from 18 different "organisations" (and I'm bound to have forgotten some!).  Most have been excellent, and I have had very few reasons to complain.

So, although I can't hear a fat lady singing, it's all over bar the shouting.  This is actually quite a milestone, I realize: everything left to do on the house and garden will be done by my own fair hands.  There are hundreds of jobs around the pace and I don't have a list - that would be too depressing!  My project management technique is to decide at the weekend what I think are the most important tasks to be done, and make a list of what I would like to achieve in the week.  Thus the next weekend, if I have done nearly everything on the list, I can feel pretty happy with myself and make a new list for the next week. And so on...

PS In case you hadn't noticed, it's spring.  I am very happy to report that my hedge and trees, planted at the end of last November (see this link), have survived the (admittedly mild) winter and are now about to burst forth with lots of new shoots.