Digging!

Digging is not as easy as you would imagine… I went on site today, to meet with the contractor to negotiate a price for the retaining wall (that went successfully) but also to let George have another different type of work experience.

As I had already I finished the meeting with the contractor, and was waiting for the foreman, I decided to also give a hand in the digging! It was a lot more hard work than I had imagined, but I do think I’ll do it again! It beats being in an office getting frustrated about things not getting done or being delayed! I think next time I feel that I’m just fighting the system; I’ll just go to site, role up my sleeves and at least do something that matters!

Whilst I was there I also saw how the new fills were being made. Quite impressive. Interlocking stones (for photos click here)! Not just effective but actually look good! The contractor told me that it was actually cheaper for him to do it like that than compacted earth! So one can only wonder why it was not done from the beginning?

Digging went one for a few hours and just before lunch, because I could wait no longer as I had to meet other people, George and I just went to get a little moral booster (drinks for all the men on site). They were needing it! And they might actually need it even more if we actually need to bring the walls down… Martin raised the question and now Mike has got an UK engineer to look at it. It seems that the retaining wall might not be as safe as I was hoping it to be… I still feel pretty confident with it, and so did the engineer here, but it is some times better to get a second opinion.

My afternoon was a funny one. After spending the morning digging I met Prince Seeiso in the afternoon. Quite a change from the morning. You dig all day and then get to shake hands with Royalty. Quite an interesting experience wouldn’t you say so?

After that I met the QEII staff for another meeting on the Playground. Slowly we seem to be getting somewhere. This week I will test the tyre solution with a 1:1 model (after yesterday’s meeting with MacCloy I think that I have found a solution for a higher barrier, two tyres on in the other still need to test it anyway).

But I must say the highlight of my day was a meeting with Molope. Molope is one of the students that I’m helping to design Lydia’s new house. They are quite busy at the moment with exams, but he found some time to meet me today, and discuss that project. I showed him an initial sketch and we chatted about how I felt we should develop it. This was quite an important meeting because I was nearly about to think of it as a lost cause. Molope’s commitment to it has just motivated me to continue and have hope that it will actually get done.

Not quite sure if we’ll be putting up the steels tomorrow for the reinforcement of not, but let’s wait and see.