The timber arrives from Jewsons by lorry and is loaded on to our barge at Horning quay which is safely navigated to my dyke at Heronshaw and the Harnser building work starts. Wimbledon Fortnight continues with much excitement as Britain's Jeremy Bates makes the last sixteen
No trouble in waking up this morning, with the sun shining through the thin curtains and the Norfolk birds making their normal early-morning racket. A drink, breakfast of cereal and a little planning for the day before getting some tools out and doing a little more on the grounds before the first of my helpers arrived. It was David Goodman, soon followed by "Gilly", the labourer, at 8.00am and I borrowed David's car to extend my reservation of space at Horning Quay before the shop-keepers arrived. I found Tony, of Amis construction, parked in The Swan car park reading his newspaper whilst sitting in his van and I soon roped him in to give me a lift back to Heronshaw. He started up the barge and I accompanied him in The Jolly as we crossed over to the quay where Steven had arrived and helped us swap the boats over.
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I got him to take the Paxton Princess back to Heronshaw and to help the carpenters whilst I helped the bargeman prepare the barge by bailing out the bilges and arranging battens across the bottom to keep any timber stored below off of the floor. By the time the Jewsons lorry arrived, we were in good shape and then followed a mad scramble to clear the quay of vehicles to allow the lorry to get alongside and bring its crane into use. The wood was heavy and wet with tanalising fluid and I had to get both lorry and barge drivers to help unload some of the larger sections and stow them below in the barge before the rest could be craned onto the top. Whilst the lorry driver went off for the other half of the load, I treated Tony to a shared bottle of coke, some crisps, and then we moved more of the timbers below until the lorry was back.
A similar exercise followed until all the timber was on board - even if the barge was rather top-loaded. More mayhem with the parked cars on the quay and then we could cruise back with the barge. There must have been about six tons on the barge and it was well down in the water and I had worries about it running aground in Ropes Hill Dyke as the water was very low again but it came through well and was soon in the boat-shed dock and the task complete. The good thing about the morning was that we had finished all of the timber handling within the space of the morning, and I had accomplished this with just me and two people whilst leaving the other three to get on with the building. The carpenters had surveyed the piles and were marking out and cutting the half laps for fixing the bearers.
Steve was digging down and securing mesh to the decking rails to keep vermin out and had just about finished one side and was starting the other by lunch. He had brought some pork for lunch which we had in sandwiches and then I drove off for more materials whilst they carried on. By the end of the day, they had the bearers roughly in place nearly ready for fixing and Steve and I worked on to install the service ducts for water and electricity, the rest of the ducting being left in coils for burying in the trench later. We both enjoyed a nice bath to wash off the day's grime before driving into Horning for our evening meal in the Piccasso's Pizza and enjoyed cooling down sitting on their veranda. Wimbledon Fortnight continues with much excitement as Britain's Jeremy Bates makes the last sixteen and very nearly made the last eight before losing a thrilling five-set match to somebody much higher in the rankings.