Saturday 30 April - Day 30

Today I had 3 showers, only the last one was planned. The forecast was for showers in the morning and it didn't disappoint. It rained all the way to Warriewood at 7am. When Pete arrived on site at about 7:20, the blue sky was just becoming visible so I spent 3o minutes getting all the water off the tarp and folding it back so that we could erect our first wall. Pete was busy preparing the framing for the second wall. No sooner than I collected all the timber for the frame, I turned around and the sky was was becoming very dark. Shower number 1. It stared pissing down. So I scrambled to put the tarp back up again and got completely soaked. As I wasn't prepared and I didn't have any spare clothes, I re-connected the dryer and stripped to my jocks and threw everything in for the duration of a coffee break. I reckon I looked a real site with nothing but steel caps and underpants on. By the time I dried out the clouds had disappeared and I took off the tarp yet again. I then nailed together the south wall in Nichayla's room and Pete was preparing Nichayla's East wall. Once together, we erected the first frames to our second storey.

While I nailed together the third wall, the skies opened again. As we couldn't throw the tarp over the two erected frames I continued in the rain until finished. Shower number two. Pete was a whole lot mote prepared than I and actually bought a rain jacket with him, I however was drenched again. Rather than using the dryer I just took off my shirt and kept going. We managed to get the third frame built and then Pete started on the fourth while I tried to rotate and position the tarp on the new frames. Sounds easy but moving a 10m * 12m tarp that is wet and gritty from dirt and sawdust etc, is really very difficult. Especially trying to raise it 2.4m above you head by yourself. Chris and Marty to the rescue. Marty was coming to borrow my grinder and offered his assistance when Chris next door came home and saw us struggling so he also came to help. With three of us it was a lot easier and we managed to get Nichayla's room covered and then built a ridge to allow any water to run off without pooling.

Pete threw up the timber for wall number 4 and I started nailing it together. We were now starting to run low on timber supplies so we needed to scrounge around for any 2*4 lengths, this included what we had used for the make shift roof that was holding the tarp up. Marty was now in supervisor mode we put up the 4th wall, and then we started fabricating the 5th and last wall for the day. Both time and timber had run out for the day. With the 5th wall up and braced it, with the tarp over it, Pete called it a day.

I finished getting the tarp tied down to my satisfaction, fed the animals and went home for a well deserved home brew. I'll be back later to re-attach the ridge capping I removed earlier and then have dinner with Peter and Leonnie.