A fine day at last ! The temperature was above freezing, and got warmer during the day. We were back on brick laying with gay abandon! It felt as if we had been cooped up indoors for a week, and finally we were let loose.

The early part of the day was misty and grey, but definitely warming up. Bob decided to get on with laying the first course of blues on the 180m section. This is the tricky one; you have to adapt the height of the concrete foundation to the level required by dropping down from the profiles that you set up a week earlier. On this stretch Bob had to resort to laying the first blues on their sides instead of on the their backs, in order to avoid an overly thick bed of mortar underneath. Next week we will concrete this in, so that all the bricks will start from the correct height.

Here are John S and Bob just making quite sure the height from the top of the profile is exactly right. Bob built himself a little tower, which will enable him to carry on next week by laying along the string line from one tower to the next.

In this picture, we can see Bob just coming to the end of the 180m section, still on his hands and knees. Can you get brick layer's knees, like housemaid's knee?
The next along is John S backing up. We were one backer-upper short today, as Tony was dumpering at Broadway. We missed you, Tony !
Behind Bob is the remaining pile of blues, now reduced to 9 stacks, after yours truly took down one more stack of 400 blues for John S to use.
Right at the back are Peter D backing up, and JC on the front laying down a second layer of corbelling. John O is spooning some mortar over the wall for Pete, in the far distance.

Here is a close up of JC corbelling row 2 on the 140m section. He completed this row, and went on to do half of the next section as well. It's slow work, corbelling, but the result looks brilliant.. Very neat, it is. Just one straight line all the way to the horizon.

Behind John in the distance is a pile of former platform slabs, in natural stone but damaged. The news here is that we have decided to buy new concrete slabs in the end, as the old ones were too far gone to be re-used. The concrete ones will be shot blasted for a slightly rougher finish, and they should discolour quicker so that they won't look quite so new. If there is any interest in buying the old ones (there are over 100 of them) let us know. They are made of natural stone and could be useful for something.

This view, taken in the middle of the day once the sun had come out, shows how far the platform construction has advanced. The end is in sight!

The unsung heroes of our tale are the backer-uppers. Because the wall is quite thick, they have to lay far more bricks than the guys doing the pretty bit at the front. Here is John S laying his second row for the day (he already laid a double row of headers underneath in the morning) and behind him is an enormous stack of fresh bricks, which all need laying, please. More stacks sit on top of the cutting. All in blue now, as we have run out of reds.

This one shows the double row of headers John S laid today. Bob also laid a row of stretchers on the front, with John S's row of stretchers on the rear, so this bit is up two rows today. Thanks to the absence of trains, we can pile ready stocks of bricks along the running line, which is handy and saves time. Not for much longer though...

Just to allow readers to keep up with the news, here is a picture of the L/C as we found it this morning. Kerb stones all round, and nice fresh ballast in between, then rolled.
Later in the day a skip came, with instructions to throw in any waste that we had,. We had some, mostly bits of rebar that came in the rubble from the old stadium.
Let's hope the skip isn't full of old sofas, fridges and buggies by next week when we come back.

Any mice today? Yep! We caught two. Here's one 'snapped' by Bob's rat trap. (was it Anon E Mouse by any chance?). Tea and peanut butter seem to have been on the intended menu.

Our last picture shows the newly opened 180m section. Bob is pointing his earlier work (this takes quite a chunk out of the day) and behind him John O and indeed yours truly, have laid a row of concrete blocks to form a shuttering which we will fill with concrete next week. Beyond that the 190m section, the last one of full height, as the 200m section will form the downward slope.

Next Monday, still two of the gang off sick, and John O, so reliable (here at 06.40 today! - my alarm hadn't even gone off yet, and he was already there) away on family business. What will we do without him? Anyone that can come down and help make mortar, please do, we were only 5 1/2 today (Pete always works half a day).