I was trying to find a suitable memorial for poor Rusty the digger driver, and I came up with this. I think a dog-loving Australian yodelling cowboy bush balladeer guitar player with a rhyming name is a pretty appropriate candidate to commemorate a gentle English digger driver who worked with his dog in the cab, don't you? Oh, and in case any of you were thinking of emitting a scornful snort at any point in the performance, I'd like to point out that during his lifetime, Slim Dusty was considered an Australian National Treasure. National Living Treasure is a status created and occasionally updated by the National Trust of Australia's New South Wales branch, awarded to up to 100 living people. Recipients were [sic] selected by popular vote for having made outstanding contributions to Australian society in any field of human endeavour. (Wikipedia)
So there!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jozYWe4l_qY
Anyway, it turns out that our Rusty hasn't gone to the great scrapheap in the sky after all, and he's going to be here tomorrow with his digger and probably his dog too, to help the redoubtable sappers fill in the gaping gaps behind the redoubt. Strange that, isn't it? I mean, who has a dog called "too"?
Armistice
Well, actually two armistices. The first one came after a visit from the Structural Engineer (I like him, so I'm giving him capital letters) who expressed considerable concern for the safety of anyone working in the bottom of our trenches. There were several factors at play here:
- The walls falling in, sometimes in big lumps, always unpredictably
- The depth of the trench - over two metres so far, and only just hit the top of the house foundations
- Rain - and more rain predicted
He said he would talk to the builder (they're all mates who have worked together before). The following day, after another collapse, the single piece of shuttering they'd put up fell inwards under the weight of mud.
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| single piece of shuttering, still up (just) |
So there was Dean in the bottom of the trench, gallantly trying to shovel mud out from behind the shuttering, whilst standing between it and a huge mound. The fallen earth had left a two foot deep overhang, which, if it had chosen to fall, would surely have broken both is legs and trapped him under four tons of mud. So I went all managerial and told him to get out of there while we had another go at trying to put some safety into the whole show. After all, massive loss of life has been tried before, and it didn't result in a very nice extension in 1914.
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| Armistice #1. Overhanging stuff. Our brave boys stand ready (on top of the overhang, natch) |
Phone calls ensued. The Structural Engineer talked to the builder, and the builder talked to the digger driver, and the digger driver pointed out that if he did what the Structural Engineer wanted (which was to grade all the sides of the hole out to 45° slopes) he would then be unable to get the digger out of the garden, because of the resulting step up to the edge of the drive, and also unable to access parts of the ditch. Hmmm.
Meanwhile, I went to sleep. I expected someone to call me and explain what they were going to do, but...
Eventually I woke up ("in bear emerging from hibernation" mode) and went to see what was going on. Dean was back in the trench, but at the other end, where there wasn't an overhang. Nothing much else seemed to have changed.
At this point I though, "Well I've had my say"; so I told Dean that I would be on his side if he decided he didn't like it at any point, and let them get on with it. Here's what they did:
That's Dean, who is about 5' 10", below the top of the shuttering, which is about 3ft below ground level - so roughly 9ft deep! Anyway, the building inspector came and said it was good; and so, it was good. Next day they finished off the box,
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| finished box |
and the concrete came...
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| concrete - actually nearly all gone when this was taken |
and our stout-hearted yeomen set to with barrows (!) to fill the thing up
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| A barrow boy |
I must admit that my heart sank slightly at this point as I thought it would take longer than the remaining hours of daylight to do this, but amazingly they finished it in about an hour and a half.
And then they tucked it up for the night in yet more OSB and we all went to bed. The second armistice was signed, and the collapsing garden gave up the fight in the face of surprisingly good weather, 30-odd tons of concrete and a lot of backfilling.
When it was all over, I was talking to Kieran the digger driver (still no word of Rusty, by the way. I think the Wing Commander must have written a letter to his wife) who said he was just about to go on a course to renew his digger driving ticket, which had in fact already run out. I said, "Oh, so you're probably not insured then?" He looked quite wistful, and was unusually quiet for a few moments. "I suppose not", said he.
Shelling
Here on the front line. the distinction between a trench and a bomb crater is somewhat academic. It's safe to say that terms like "patio" and "garden" have somewhat lost their meaning, too. We do understand "mud hole" and "river" though.
Here's the latest aerial surveillance photo after a prolonged bout of Rain (or Rhine; past tense, Rhône). You can clearly see the course of the Rhône:
Needless to say, all this unexpected exposure of what should rightly be kept underground is putting a bit of strain on the plucky civilian population. How long will this terrible Rhine Garrone? It's the heaviest we've ever Seine (past tense: Saône). Isère anything we can do? Seemingly, not a Lot. It's enough to make one quite Ill. Just have to Marne up and take it on the Dordogne, I suppose. (If anyone can explain that last one to me, please do so in the comments).
Anyway, we are consoled by the delivery of a new digger, late this afternoon, and the possibility of actual building-style progress tomorrow. Alas, there is still no word on the fate of Rusty, who apparently went missing in action somewhere today and hasn't been heard of since.
Here's the latest aerial surveillance photo after a prolonged bout of Rain (or Rhine; past tense, Rhône). You can clearly see the course of the Rhône:
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| the Rhine, of course! |
The piece of lawn which used to support the top of the ladder now supports the bottom of it, after yet another collapse. Meanwhile, the sappers have been tunnelling under the drive in a bid to thwart the next wave of shelling - at least that's what it looks like.
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| Ouche! |
Anyway, we are consoled by the delivery of a new digger, late this afternoon, and the possibility of actual building-style progress tomorrow. Alas, there is still no word on the fate of Rusty, who apparently went missing in action somewhere today and hasn't been heard of since.
Somme people...
We've decided to start a Battle of the Somme re-enactment society, based in the site of the old patio.
After a couple of hours mucking about with buckets and OSB, trying to make the trenches safe with shuttering, our gallant building crew (but sadly not including Rusty the digger man, who had a previous commitment elsewhere today) gave up and went home, following a near miss in which young Ewan became partially submerged in mud. We never intended to risk to life and limb, after all. And we aren't on a very strict timescale either, so no worries. Apparently when Rusty returns, it will all be much better.
Pity really, it's a lovely day...
After a couple of hours mucking about with buckets and OSB, trying to make the trenches safe with shuttering, our gallant building crew (but sadly not including Rusty the digger man, who had a previous commitment elsewhere today) gave up and went home, following a near miss in which young Ewan became partially submerged in mud. We never intended to risk to life and limb, after all. And we aren't on a very strict timescale either, so no worries. Apparently when Rusty returns, it will all be much better.
Pity really, it's a lovely day...
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| Battle scene, photographed from a passing Bristol Scout |
Curtains
We don't really do curtains very much in the house of Sears, but the lovely Jackie decided that we need a fabric enhancement the bit of glass beside the front door. This particular curtain-like entity would be hand-made of various pieces of exotic fabric (in middle eastern styles) collected over several years in our travels abroad, sewn together into a vertical pennant by the lovely Jackie herself. The whole assembly would be supported on a bracket, which would need to pivot so that the pennant could rest against either wall or window, ninety degrees apart. Obviously, this pivoting bracket would need to be custom made. Equally obviously, the most fulfilling solution would be to make it out of bits of scrap found lying around the place...
One obvious source would be the several curtain poles which came with the house, now forlornly unused because of our general preference for blinds. Here's a candidate:
When you take it apart, there are some useful things inside the fixing system. And I had a few other bits in stock.
The two threaded bits on the wooden block are RivNuts; when you squash them into a hole in a piece of metal, they rivet themselves on, and you have a strong thread attached to a thin sheet. I have those in stock. The piece of aluminium underneath everything else was salvaged from Cambium Networks when they scrapped a load of them; I can't remember what they were originally. It's about 3mm thick, and has those bosses attached, but a swift blow with a suitable punch removes them quite easily (for use for something else).
From these bits, I made a bracket, a cut down top post cover, and a rather complicated block:
I also cut down the shiny post gizmo that screws onto the ceiling so that I could get it further into the corner, but I forgot to take a picture of that part before it got installed. You get the idea from the cut down cover shown above.
The idea is that my little bracket gets screwed to the wall at the bottom, and then the roofing screw shown above holds the wooden cover on, at the same time as protruding upwards to form the bottom pivot by threading into the second RivNut, which is glued inside a hole in the bottom of the post. The post then pivots on the thread, like the kingpin end of the bottom wishbone on an MG Midget. But without the grease nipples.
When it's all assembled, it looks like this:
and the ends in close up:
One obvious source would be the several curtain poles which came with the house, now forlornly unused because of our general preference for blinds. Here's a candidate:
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| a candidate |
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| useful things... |
From these bits, I made a bracket, a cut down top post cover, and a rather complicated block:
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| One bracket, a cut down cover, and a rather complicated block |
Or, looked at right side up, and with the addition of a long roofing screw, like this:
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| right side up |
The idea is that my little bracket gets screwed to the wall at the bottom, and then the roofing screw shown above holds the wooden cover on, at the same time as protruding upwards to form the bottom pivot by threading into the second RivNut, which is glued inside a hole in the bottom of the post. The post then pivots on the thread, like the kingpin end of the bottom wishbone on an MG Midget. But without the grease nipples.
When it's all assembled, it looks like this:
and the ends in close up:
Oh, and the top bar (from which the pennant will hang) is made from a piece of rather nice hardwood which was part of the packaging of our Miele dishwasher (I think it was three years ago). And so, the whole thing was done with no new parts purchased at all, which I think is rather a delight.
The best bit of the whole thing was using the router as a spindle moulder by clamping it upside down in the vice...
Then you have to clamp blocks to the workpiece to make it big enough to slide around on the thing:
(The hammer is just to stop it all falling off while I took the picture) I pondered trying to use a fence to guide it, but in the end I did everything hand-held. All in all, it worked surprisingly well, with no loss of fingers.
In other news, it's curtains for the patio, because we've started having the extension built which will become the dining room in due course. So far, they've dug down over two metres and haven't got to the top of the foundations yet! The hole keeps getting bigger (sideways) and filling itself in as the sides collapse, too. It's all slightly scary, but fortunately we are paying someone else to do the worrying, and Rusty the digger man seems quite good at excavating.
I expect there will be more news of the hole soon... In the meantime, we are sticking our fingers in our ears and going "La la la" a lot.
The best bit of the whole thing was using the router as a spindle moulder by clamping it upside down in the vice...
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| spindle moulder anyone? |
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| big enough to slide around |
(The hammer is just to stop it all falling off while I took the picture) I pondered trying to use a fence to guide it, but in the end I did everything hand-held. All in all, it worked surprisingly well, with no loss of fingers.
In other news, it's curtains for the patio, because we've started having the extension built which will become the dining room in due course. So far, they've dug down over two metres and haven't got to the top of the foundations yet! The hole keeps getting bigger (sideways) and filling itself in as the sides collapse, too. It's all slightly scary, but fortunately we are paying someone else to do the worrying, and Rusty the digger man seems quite good at excavating.
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| Rusty the digger man getting started |
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