Steve Bloom was always ready to help me in Norfolk
Steve Bloom was always ready to help me in Norfolk

A simple breakfast following a much milder and more comfortable night after which I marked out my shed foundation and prepared to lay the bricks ready for the Blooms to arrive and help me move bricks and order some 20 13ft crossing timbers which will span the garage floor. The rest of the day until very late constructing brick piers and then to bed very tired after a long hot bath and a mug of hot chocolate

I woke at 7.00am on and found the weather much milder than last night. Either this, or I was warm enough from working hard yesterday. I made my simple breakfast and then started work outside at 8.00am or soon after. For the first couple of hours I made my own bricklaying aids, marked out the line I wanted the foundation wall to take and cleared up so that I was all ready to start work. At this point the Blooms arrived and I stopped to have coffee with them and then made some telephone enquiries about sleepers. They wanted to go and fetch a 17ft catamaran sailing dinghy to moor at Heronshaw and so I worked on and had started the bricklaying by the time that they returned. Then they worked with me for a couple of hours, helping me to move the bricks and mix the mortar before they had to go to take their towing boat back to Wroxham.

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I worked on until well after dark and I had managed to get the whole of one end wall done with a return on each side and the start of two brick piers so that that section could be load-bearing when I come back for another session. I was dog-tired when I had finished and could only clear up and then take a long rest with some sandwiches rather than get packed up and drive back to Paxton. I ordered my twenty-odd railway sleepers by telephone today. They will be crossing timbers actually - twelve by six inches in cross section and 13ft long so as to span the width of the entire garage in one go. I hope they will be delivered next Saturday and I intend to get a cement mixer on hire and Steve's help to get the entire brick foundation completed then if I can. It has been a difficult and expensive job but I think that the garage will be worth it when I have finished and I can then get the ground raised. Later this evening, I tidied up and then had a long hot bath, a mug of hot chocolate and went to bed. I had heard no radio at all these last couple of days.