What a cold start this morning.... 1.5 degrees when I set off. At Cheltenham, slightly warmer, but a bitter wind blew down the track. At least we had a clean trip round Bishops Cleeve, without traffic, as last week there was a momentous hold-up caused, it turned out, by a 14ft bus going under a 13ft bridge in Hyde lane! Later that morning, we saw it go by the site without its roof on, as if nothing was amiss. Quite strange.

Bob tests the new gauge.

Bob brought a new gauge today. We already have one that shows the exact height required for each row of bricks, mortar included. Bob has now made one that shows the position of each header going along in the same row, mortar included. Neat ! It's such a precise science, that brick laying.

Pete spreads the concrete to bring the foundations up to the required level.

 We had a good crew of brick layers today, including Peter Q and John S, with Tony also now back from gone away. We really motored along. We even had a fly by in our honour! Two F15s at low altitude flew diagonally over CRC, it must have been to congratulate is, surely ! What a noise.

We put a short stretch of concrete down to equalise the foundation levels. The arrival of the GC lads ( the good news) saw to it that within minutes, there was a large boot print in the middle of our nice mushy concrete (the bad news) followed soon after by another. D'oh !

A new angle of the wall building is now possible, thanks to the good progress made. Note the remains of the CRC2 waiting room behind, which mark the half way point.

 John C spent the day adding two rows of corbelling on sections 50m and 60m, while Tony backed these up in reds as well. One corbelling course to completion on the 50m section to go, and two on the 60m section.

The GC lads. Two of them must have concrete under their boots - you will be checked as you leave the site!

 The GC lads made a very useful contribution by backing up a considerable section in reds. It was to make this possible that there was an extra session of blues last Saturday. Thank you, GC lads !

Pete at morning prayers.

 Yours truly was at Broadway of course on Saturday, and I was impressed by the extra bits they had added when I saw CRC2 this morning. Especially motivating was the setting out of another section, bringing the distance in progress to 100m. You can just about see that written on the frame in the picture above. In fact, by the end of the day, the 90m section started only last week had two courses of blues and reds on it, and the new 100m section had a course of reds at foundation level throughout. Next week - block laying on the 90m section. Fairview arrived just in time with a pallet of solid blues, to keep John supplied with his corbelling.

Working the Hilti is fun, but I'm still vibrating as I write this posting....

 

 

 

An overview of CRC2 near the end of the day. Nearest to the camera, Peter Q and John S are completing the first foundation course on the new 100m section.

An event not recorded by your Blogger was the arrival of a special steam hauled marketing train at the end of the morning. I was in a 3 hour planning meeting about Broadway in the booking office, and heard only the whistle. I guessed that the loco was Great Western, but the experts with me could even tell that it was a 2-6-2 tank engine. I still have a lot to learn...