At the start of the week, we had the makings of a swimming pool (with nearly a foot of water in the deep end) surrounded by heaps of soggy wet red clay. By the end of the week, we were starting to see something closer to the finished article. TJ, our concrete specialist, had been hard at week preparing the hard landscaping and pouring the concrete decks. But it was not an easy task.
He was scheduled to pour the concrete in two sessions on Wednesday. By mid-afternoon, no concrete had arrived. It transpired that the factory supplying the concrete (it needed to be specially prepared with colour and other additives) had broken down, and so there would be no concrete delivered to us that day.
Everything was rescheduled for delivery early on Thursday morning and then the second load at shortly after lunchtime. The early delivery arrived only an hour later, and was rapidly poured into the carefully arranged shuttering. But where was the second load?
By 3pm, we had the factory claiming that it left half past twelve, and then the driver rang to say that he had got lost. but would be with us soon. Half an hour later, still no delivery, so TJ rang the driver to say “don’t bother coming” – the concrete had been in the truck for more than 3 hours and would now be too far gone in setting to be poured for our deck.
The final pouring did not happen until Friday.
All the delays had a knock-on effect on the other tasks. TJ (assisted by his sons) spent much of the weekend (including Monday – a public holiday) woring on cleaning up the concrete, clearing away the shuttering and sealing the deck to make it properly waterproofed. Next week he will be busy with a lot of hard landcaping to ensure that when it rains, the pool will not be oveflowing with all the runoff water from the ridge. Opening day for the pool seems to be slipping into the far distance.
On Tuesday, we went to the Castleberry’s retirement party at Cavender Creek Winery. Something of an honour to be invited – most of the guests will be winery owners and operators from around Georgia. It was a very lively event, and I took the opportunity to pick up on the local gossip. We also had a dinner date with Bill the Builder and Mike our architect (plus wives), and TJ and his wife Leanne were also present. It was something of a thank you for all the publicity that the magazine article about our Reality Build has garnered.
Finally, preparations for the state conference of Master Gardeners in Dahlonega in a week’s time are reaching something of a crescendo. It’s been a very busy week.
From the weekly Crimebeat report (reflecting a sense of urgency)
A woman said her ex-boyfriend took her Dodge Ram pickup truck three years ago and she would like it back.