We headed over to Blue Spur, Hoki on Friday after work. We thought the roads would be busy with Coast to Coast traffic but they weren’t bad at all. I hadn’t realised the pre-race briefing was no longer in Kumara so was expecting a buzzing town but no it has moved to Greymouth, and although understandable with the bigger numbers it is a shame for Kumara. We were also expecting rain but it was fine thoughout the drive over and when we arrived in Blue Spur it was blue skies. Quasi and Essie know when we are getting close to Blue Spur and Essie is always the most vocal. As a pup she wasn’t a great traveller and drooled the whole way. She was never keen to get into the falcon but now she jumps straight in.

Saturday am we headed to Blackball and were very pleased to see that it was dry there also. The roofer is booked for Wednesday so we had some jobs to complete prior to that. The metal fascia and guttering had been installed on the lower roof the day before. The roofing and cladding is all through Metalcraft and they have been great to deal with. The scaffold was now all in place which made it was so much easier moving around the roof. While Al put up the wood fascia on the upper roof my first job was to cover the electrical cables of the skylights which required a bit of balancing. And then I was tasked to add some extra blocking at the barges. Once I had measured and cut all the blocking then it needed to be nailed in place and neighbour Austin kindly assisted me. My next job was the blocking for the lower roof soffit which again needed measuring and cutting. Although the scaffolding was great for the upper roof work the soffit work required me sitting down on the job, fortunately I am short which was in my favour. Throughout this Al carried on with the preparation needed for the roofers as he can’t be there it is important they know where the cladding and trims will finally be for their flashings. Al set up a series of temporary cladding strips so they could measure to them.

We decided to stay the night in BB and booked one of the Tiny Houses behind Blackball Salami, where we had already stayed a couple of times. There are 3 tiny houses and they are compact but still spacious and fully self contained. The doggies bed for the night was the mighty falcon which they have happily spent the night in over the years. It was nice not to have to head back to Hoki and have some down time in BB. Our first stop was the BB Hilton for a drink and then headed back to check on the doggies. Our next stop was the BB Inn for dinner and an impromptu fun evening before heading back to our Tiny House (or ran as it was pouring outside) to quickly let the doggies out for a run around before collapsing into bed.

It was still raining in the morning but we still had had a couple of jobs that needed to be done for the roofer. Once that was completed we headed home and will be back next weekend. All going to plan the roof will be on by then which is exciting.