It was a beautiful summer morning, and I felt like getting high. There are many ways, and none of mine involve burning weeds. I'm more addicted to hydraulic fluids.
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Over a period of time, my notebook had been filling with high-level jobs, to be done when the weather was good, and access was possible. Since Steve-the-Painter fell from a ladder, broke both wrists, jaw, skull fracture collar bone and six ribs, one of which went through his lung, we've been kinda officially discouraged from using ladders if any other means of access can be utilised. So I borrowed the Green Machine for the morning. |
There are no controls in the basket, unlike in a cherry-picker. It relies on hand signals to a skilled driver below.
And up close to measure movement cracks. Way back in the late 1800s, somebody got the footings wrong on this building. The rest of it rises and falls with variations in the ground water in the shale beneath. This end stays still, because it sits directly on rock. So filling the cracks, as someone did about six years ago, with sand/cement mortar, is doomed to fail. Flexible polymer mastics might be better, but I have a plan...
There's a new window to put in here, and a redundant stainless-steel flue to take down.
Another flue to remove.
Roofs to inspect and photograph, pending some alterations.
High level cables to clip, a cctv camera to clean and realign, yard lights to have new tubes, slates to refix, a zillion jobs, or as many as I can achieve in five hours.
Oh. Earthlings below.
"Beam me down, Scotty"
