love it!

So this weekend the fun started the boys were on site laying the first bricks. Keiran etched his name into the first brick as it was to be laid in his house. It was a busy day on site moving blocks, making up muck and laying blocks. More concrete crushing was  required.

Sabrina and Keiran went away for a few days last week and got engaged! They are planning on getting married next year. So now there is also a wedding to plan. Mum is going crazy over the thought of shopping and choosing colours with Sabrina. I hope Keiran knows what he has signed up for. Nothing like a bit of hard work from our family this year life is non- stop!

Blocking Good Progress

It has been a while since the last update on account that we are all so busy. This weekend we have been moving blocks, to get them ready for the brick layers to start the block work. A very exciting phase in the build; where from the ground houses will hopefully appear.

I always knew Mark was good at maths. I remember from my childhood, at about 9 years old, I had trigonometry explained to me. I didn’t understand this concept then, I grasped the concept for my GCSE maths where I got a B, but have since forgotten how to use this skill. Why you ask may I be mentioning this? Well I have always known that building involved lots of mathematical understanding, but not quite realised how much. Until we are on site discussing and mentally calculating how many blocks to stack in which places, believe it or not you have to work this out. It apparently saves you from moving the blocks twice and wasting time and energy.

So moving the blocks themselves was a physical task which we all did together. Whilst working, Mark also informed me that for every block we moved we saved 8p on a labourer. So whilst carrying it was a good opportunity to practice my 8 times table.


My head is now filled with Maths! So what to do with the rest of my Sunday after dinner? With maths in my head I suppose I had better get on with planning a few maths lessons for the children at school.

Mix-Up

Sabrina and Keirans Place

So it has been a while since the last update due to the Wrights running around the country socialising and partying, Nicola is also going back to school, boo hoo!

The site has moved on lots and lots the footings have been dug and filled with concrete. This involved several weekends of concrete mixing and Les in the trenches spreading it out.


What, you may ask have we learned about mixing concrete? Well, if one person loads the mixer with cement, one puts in the ballast and the other person adds the water the job gets done faster. Although bags of cement are heavy and dusty and after a day on site even you boogies are concreted up your nose. Water is less physical work but be careful not to catch the bucket on the edge of the mixer, this results in the water flying back out at you making you soaked wet through to your pants and you begin to wonder if it is water ,or if you have wet yourself.

We have been introduced to the concrete crusher this weekend which is a noisy machine that eats large pieces of concrete and smashes it up into little chunks.

After many years of being told not to play with fire, we lit a bonfire and enjoyed burning everything we could find on site.

The Wright House

Digger or Tank

Look Happy!A Picture from a while age before the garage was taken down

This weekend the whole team were on site including Mark, Keiran, Sabrina, Stephen, Nicola and Tank (the dog).

measuring out

The boys spent the morning measuring out the footings which involved lots of equipment including laser levels and also some less technical equipment like tape measures and string.



Then after marking out more digging commenced to dig the trenches. Tank had a thoroughly good day marking his territory, watching the passersby and jumping in the trenches. He however does not like the noise of the digger and as soon as that started he walked to the top of the garden, to eat grass and have a little lay down.

Sabrina and Nicola have discovered many nice plants in the garden area and spent some time taking Ivy off the trees and fences. They have also found the world largest climbing rose over one of the trees which extends over the tree branches to next doors garden. When we are able to get the Ivy off of the tree the rose should be fantastic.


This weekend Nicola, Sabrina and Stephen had a little tuition in the large digger. Which has many controls and under the watchful eye of Daddy Mark we moved a tiny bit of earth. Stephen of course was far more successful than the girls. Surprisingly Nicola has much to learn and as teacher becomes a pupil once again, Nicola finds herself in the special needs section of the class.

Foot-in

The site is being cleared and levelled. Much of the earth has been removed. We are hoping to get the footings dug over the next few days. Mark has hired a much larger digger to help load the earth onto the big lorries.

On the theme of footings Stephen has been asking for something for his feet. He and Nicola required new protective work boots so we went on a little shopping trip tonight to Wickes. Although the boots were reasonably priced the shop didn’t have any boots for Nicola. Apparently no females buy boots from Wickes or any guys out there with little feet, as they only stock sizes 8 and above. So lesson learned if you are a female builder or a tiny bloke Wickes do not cater for you. Guess Nicola have to shop somewhere else to get her DICKies!

The Baby Came Back

Nicola and Stephen had a little visit to the site to see the progress of the works. Mark has been working very hard with help from Sabrina and Keiran to demolish the garage. They have also digging and clearing land. It seems that both Mark and the digger have been working over time.

So after our little outing we decided to go to Mum and Daddy Marks for a cup of tea. It is clear that their baby is back home. Keiran and Sabrina have given up their rented flat to live with our parents again in a bid to save money for the house. For the past two years our parents have been enjoying the peace and quiet that grown up children bring. For example preparing them occasional meal and tearful phone call when there is a problem especially with the house or when DIY work is needed.


This peace and quiet is no longer, the TV is playing Hollyoaks on repeat. The work office is no longer a place for sending e-mails and invoices but a den for playing Sims (a much loved computer game). Mum is enjoying washing everybody’s clothes and baking cakes with her baby daughter. The poor dog has now realised he is no longer Mums baby as her real baby is home. Not sure Sabrina is asking for her hair to be brushed while mum runs her bath and dad puts on the Disney DVD I think these may be things that she has now grown out of. We all love her and even though she is in her 20's she is still the baby. xxx

Chip, Chipping Away

After a very relaxing week in Dorset the Wrights returned to help on site with the mounds of branches and trees.



Daddy Mark led the safety briefing on using the chipper and Stephen got stuck into chipping. Nicola is definitely the wimp of the family and was very worried that one of the family members would lose an arm to the chipper but was assured by Mark that there is a safety bar that cuts the machine out when you lean in too far. Apparently the only way we could chip Stephen up if we need to get rid of him is feed him through the machine.

The Mountain of branches and logs!

Sabrina and Kieran were also helping chipping and the boys had a who can find the biggest branch to chip, while the girls realising that even the small branches had to go through the machine were just putting the branches in when allowed to.


Meanwhile Mark was driving Yanmar (the digger) to move the branches closer to the chipper and using the chainsaw to cut the big stuff up.

All Chipped up.

After all the wood was chipped more earth was moved to create a larger entrance to the site and dig out the initial footings foe the driveway. Which of course resulted in, a dumper truck driving competition, with Mark once again on Yanmar.

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Flattening the land and digingin the chippings

Dumper Driving!

It is amazing how a site can change in the course of a day it actually looks very spacious now and you can begin to visualise where the houses will sit and the size of the gardens.


Now to celebrate Mums birthday with a family BBQ she is still very young! Happy birthday Mummy!