Straight to hell

 We had a weekend over which we wondered how much could be got ready for the next week. Ben had been concentrating on sorting the garage roof so we'd been trying to finish the floor insulation. There was this to finish, damp proof membrane to lay on top, air tight seals round the floor penetrations (soil vent pipes plus ducts) to fit oh and then the underfloor heating. We had our underfloor heating pipes and some clips to fasten them down to the insulation - a last minute method we hadn't considered until it was suggested by Adam from Touchwood a couple of days beforehand (we'd assumed we'd be fastening to the steel floor mesh, but we had no idea when this would be fitted so logistically that was looking no good). We hadn't even intended on fitting it ourselves, but the firm we were going to use couldn't fit us in at the last minute. The bad weather had made scheduling a time slot impossible, and at the last minute, no joy. It was down to us. The firm who couldn't fit us in offered to lend us their pipe decoiler and a device to aid fitting the clips, and left it in the shop under their unit, with instructions to get there by five pm to collect it ready for the weekend. I drove down in the pouring rain, in terrible traffic, and arrived at five to five... and the shop and unit were all closed up. I cried.

But Saturday we worked - sorting ducting first. Andy finished the insulation. We made a start on the upper section, with no clue what we were doing, but managed to get the DPM laid on top the insulation, and taped together. Andy fitted the air tight seals which worked well. It started to rain again. It was already Sunday. It had got dark. We had an underfloor heating design that Andy had done and so we just got on with it, first measuring the pipe using some rope I'd cut to 10m length, cutting the pipe to size, then bending it in place with was very tricky indeed. It was freezing. I was stood on the pipe as Andy fitted it, to hold it down, shivering, handing Andy clips as he tried to bend it into shape. It started raining. We were doing it by head torch. We just had to keep going. We finished it and the pipe was exactly the right length - miracle. One down thirteen to go. This is impossible we said.

There was no way the project was ready for the slab to be poured on the day we all wanted, to be in time for the timber frame to be delivered just before Christmas. There was no way on hell that enough of the groundworks could be ready for that, there was just too much to do. The following Monday, after a total frantic weekend on site, timescales and expectations were adjusted, and we breathed a sigh of relief at the fact we had nearly three weeks to get done what we'd panicked we'd have to do in a few days. Phew, that's lots of time, we thought. We'll get it sorted over the Christmas break and we'll have time to relax once its done.

Ha ha ha haaaa

On the plus side, progress had been made on the garage - it had a roof! Five enormous pre-cast concrete wide spans were lifted onto the roof by a chap who arrived to help for the day with his tele handler. Andy had the day off and watched proceedings, I decided I couldn't bear it. But it all went fine, and a few days later a concrete cap was applied on top, using a digger to scoop up bucket loads of concrete. Because clearly there wasn't enough concrete already.

It was almost time for Christmas. I had a day off for my work Christmas party in Reading, and Andy joined us in the afternoon. It was sweet relief to be laughing and feeling momentarily happy. But that was it, next day back on site clearing up mess on the road, and onward through hell we went.