Sunny.

We've had another day of blue skies with fluffy white clouds, happy surfers and excited dogs enjoying being allowed back on the beach. I've been so busy I didn't get a chance to take photos of the lovely view.

As soon as breakfast and the morning jobs were over and I'd hung the washing on the line I finally made a start on cementing the facing blocks to the front of the raised bed. Before cementing could commence I had to dig out the sand the builder had used to fill in the trench left when he made the foundations for the block wall. With deep foundations and 6" concrete blocks that wall should be good for our lifetimes especially with an extra layer of the concrete stone effect blocks. Then came the problem of working out how much plasticizer to add to the 1 bucket of sand and 8 scoops of cement in the muck bucket. According to the instructions on the bottle I need 10ml per bag of cement, not that helpful if you're only mixing a small amount at a time. I put 10ml in a milk container of water and then tried my best to guess what proportion of the bag of cement I was using at a time. As I'm only sticking on facing blocks I don't suppose it's that vital anyway. 

Mixing was fun too as I tried out the mixing fitting with the electric drill. A bit like a giant electric kitchen whisk. As risky too when even a little too much squeezing of the on-button results in stuff flying everywhere. I tried to copy the wetter mix I saw the bricklayers using and ended up with it too wet so had to keep adding more sand and cement until I got it right, hopefully.

Having a row of conrete bricks first gave me a chance to practise brick laying as whatever I did will be hidden when the missing paving slabs are replaced. For the next row the long blocks had to spaced in such a way to allow a route out for any water coming out of the white plastic drainage pipes the builder incorporated in the block wall. Hence the extra wide gaps and the use of broken blocks.

While I was doing this Peter went down for his 'flu and covid jabs at the Community Hall. I had assumed that I hadn't been asked yet because I'm a bit younger but asked Peter to find out if they were doing drop-ins at the end of the session to use up any left over jabs. I had just mixed up a second bucket of mortar when he phoned and told me to come down straight away. That I did having changed my t-shirt but not my work trousers and wellies (I took my wellies off before I went in the hall). Many of the other people there including some of my neighbours looked to be my age or younger so I don't know why I hadn't heard anything. I was in and out in minutes, no messing about with sitting for 5 minutes though tea and biscuits were on offer. Straight back to work I went and got as far as the photos show. 

Did the ironing, made the bed and at last the day's jobs were done. Peter brought home some fish and chips. One portion is more than enough for us even if I was to eat chips (I might just have had a few) and they save the biggest fish for the locals/regulars, tonight's was massive.

Now here's hoping that neither of us has an adverse reaction to the covid jab as I've heard that more people have felt poorly after this one.