This weekend’s mission started on Friday. Al left early Friday am to get to BB to be onsite for the roofers, as they were to starting to install the flashings and had some questions. I would follow after work in the Falcon, it’s not ideal taking 2 cars but sometimes needs must. He kindly took Quasi and Essie with him which meant I didn’t have to worry about sorting them. The roofers, Valley Art Roofing, did an amazing job with the skylights and will be coming back to do the cladding soon. While they did their bit Al started putting up the blocking for the inside ceiling linings and made great progress with this. After work I drove direct to Bluespur (Hoki) just beating Al by a couple of minutes and it was a lovely evening to sit out on the deck and watch the sun set. Saturday was a foggy morning in BB which were happy about as we were working on the roof. We worked on getting the battens in place for the external plywood cladding that will be installed on the 3 upper sides. The fog lifted and the sun came out so it was hot working up on the roof. Unfortunately we ran out of timber so headed back inside (which we were secretly glad about) to carry on with the blocking for the ceiling. Then it was back to Bluespur via Mitre 10 for the some supplies for Sunday. Sitting on the deck at Bluespur on a lovely evening we both agreed that even though it is added time each day, we are able to just unwind when we are there. We are off grid and the reception isn’t the greatest so life is simple. And we still have the luxury of a hot shower in the morning though.

Sunday morning it was bit of a struggle to get up but we did after a 5 minute sleep in . We’ve got the pack up down to a fine art and we got to BB just after 9. Sundays in BB are so quiet and we feel bad making any noise but we only have the weekends to get things done so we had to carry on. We weren’t doing anything overly noisy so didn’t feel so bad. Lake Brunner scaffold had come after we left the day before and had made good progress with the dismantling of the scaffold. With the supplies we got yesterday at Mitre 10 we were able to finish the battens required for the external cladding. We stopped for a break and headed to the headed to the BB Inn for a takeaway hot drink knowing that we would skip lunch. We then decided to push ahead with the internal blocking for the interior roof lining. Working as a team Al measured and I cut the blocking while he installed it. We had planned to pack up at 2 but were so close to finishing we decided to carry on and we were really pleased to get it finished and after packing up we left BB just before 3. The trip home is 2 and a half hours, each trip is different depending on the traffic.

Sunday was day 31 of our garage/temp accomm build starting on the 24th Dec. We are both feeling a bit weary and sometimes the tasks ahead seem daunting – preparing Coalgate for sale, sorting and packing up our ‘stuff’ at the same same trying to downsize, building in BB as well as carrying on with paid work and study. But we keep each other going and we are buoyed by the support from family, friends and our new BB friends. We will be back next weekend when hopefully we will have a roller door and the materials for the external cladding, internal insulation and linings will be delivered.