Sarah and Guy Build a Swimming Pool

The blower and dehumidifier are doing their stuff, the pit base is drying out nicely, and I’m emptying about three buckets of water a day from the cabin.  On Tuesday it starts raining – and it doesn’t stop.  The delivery I’m expecting of tongue and groove and insulation doesn’t arrive – but that’s ok, it means another night of rest for my hand which is tired after my return to work. On Wednesday morning (still raining) I go to empty the bucket and find that the cabin is WETTER THAN EVER.  Damp is coming UP through the pit base – that’s the pit base that Mike the Base said NO DAMP WOULD COME THROUGH.   To say I am disheartened is putting it mildly…..  I rant about Bloody Builders to the inside of the cabin, and decide on Plan B.  (Or is it Z by this time?)  I know a fantastic chap called Dave the Damp – retired now, but he is an absolute whizz with damp problems, and sorted out the sodden house when I bought it.  Time to call him in, I thin...

As you will know from the end of ‘Week 7’, I lose all of Monday and a sizeable chunk of Tuesday stuck in the hospital….  However, the sheds are due to arrive on Wednesday (all sorted thanks to bedside hospital phones) and so the remains of the shuttering needs to be removed on Tuesday.  Guy arrives (this man needs a medal) and removes shuttering while I point and say ‘shift that’ or something equally loving.  I do a bit of the work one-handed which is a seriously bad idea – have to go and lie down! Wednesday:  The boys (Keith, Gary and Mick) leave Essex at 3am and arrive at 7am.  Good grief.  After bacon butties (rapidly becoming my speciality) they crack on with the sheds.  The small shed replacing the old garage is up by 10am... ... then they fell some branches which are in the way and start on the big shed. And they never stop!  First the sides go up, then the roof trusses, then the roof, the felt, and that’s it!  I HAVE TWO SHEDS WOO H...

Apologies for the delay - the week started easily enough! Monday:  Fill in drainage trench.  Apart from the sheer physical labour and the nagging feeling that THE BUILDERS SHOULD HAVE DONE IT, easy enough. Tuesday:  Dig out part of electric trench – the one the builders had filled in.  Apart from the concrete the builders had chucked in, easy enough.  MY POOL HAS BEEN SHIPPED.  Very exciting! Wednesday:  Guy and I start to dig the main electric trench.  It is going all along the edge of the lawn and will be covered with a brick line to make mowing easier – I meant to do this years ago and never got round to it – which is lucky, as if I had, we’d be digging them all up again…  Very hard work – lots of little tree roots and RUBBLE, of course. Thursday – evening off!  I have decided I rather like my incredibly short haircut from hell, so go to have it trimmed again.  Wyn the Wire phones to say we’re all set for Saturday to lay ...

Tuesday is a fun day – it’s Guy’s birthday!  Given the amount of work he has put in for this pool, I decide to really spoil him, so give him the ultimate present: The Hazelwood Pool Installation Survival Kit.  Contents:  Bottle of Whisky, Bottle of Radox Muscle Soak, Industrial Strength Hand Cream.  I can tell he is pleased – speechless in fact.  See – I can do this ‘spoiling’ stuff. On Wednesday NPower are booked to come and change the meter for a ‘cheap electricity overnight’ meter. This is to heat the pool which I don’t yet have and was arranged some weeks ago.  I stay at home until 9.30 when mum arrives to house sit while I go to work.  Mum arrives, man doesn’t.  At 12 she phones NPower who say yes, the man is on his way.  2pm still no man.  She phones again.  This time they say that they can’t put the meter in until ALL of the other electrical work is done and completed – total change of tune.  Mum is justifiably furious...