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My sand got wet in the overnight rain. I wanted to just lay a quick 2 bricks before church, to get on the board for the day. But the wetness of the sand mucked my ratios up, and the more sand I added to dryen the mixture up didn’t work. I had a heap of mortar and that made us late for church. We rocked up at 11. It starts at 10. Was there for the good bits though.

Deidre helped me out today. We laid a quickfire 15 in about 2 hours to make it 19 for the day. A good effort, we were by no means bored by the end either.

I’m up to my line of black paper – I’ll need to put another layer of that on now. I don’t know where the rest of that paper is, or if I have enough left.

I’m on layer 8, and I’m pretty confident that there will be 12 layers. That should make it pretty easy for me to calculate how many bricks I need. For some reason I am shirking this calculation. If I am going to finish my brick laying by the end of my Easter break though, I probably need to be making more bricks, if I need them, now. I think I’ll need a few more. It is just unclear to me how many bricks the new window will occupy. But it is an easy calculation if I just get onto it. My mindset right now is just get out there and lay bricks, while the other tasks of finishing off the roof and getting that window ready remain neglected.

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A steady run saw me continue until dark and be late for Mel and Heidi’s birthday dinner. A pleasing Saturday at it, not too tired in closing either.

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With Mum’s pending return I tidied the garage up a little bit today. The batts occupy a lot of space once they are sprung from their housing and it was a mess. They are now housed in the shack. I’ve got itchy arms and back.

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100 posts! I can't believe this project has gone on as long as it has.

Michael Green had been lamenting the end of summer. Well, we got one last day of it and a really fun 27 bricks, followed by the arrival of Hamish and Tatum, some tennis, high jumping, dinner, and cards.

The line “we’ll fix that on the next layer” has become a catch cry.

Earlier in the day I went down to North End Sand and Shingle Supplies near Woodend to pick up some more mortar sand. The guy there gave me an amazing deal on my sand. Thanks dude.

The sand was a lot finer and performed really differently. Better.

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The 6th (current) layer is going to be the last easy one. Bricklaying is at about rib height just now; the next layer up will require some difficult lifting.

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How easy was it to lay 6 bricks in a session after work? I’ll tell you how easy. Real easy. Good to be there. I get 2 weeks off at Easter so maybe I can hit it hard then.

A couple of outstanding jobs are annoying me – getting the roof tidied up, and fitting that new window. Detracts from bricklaying. I just need to toughen up.