Making safe

To be honest, my friend is an excellent DIY man, he can turn his hand to almost anything.
Well he was, as I found out only a seasonal worker to start with. This meant that from the end of October, he was free. We had discussed making the premises safe. I first saw an Officer from the Council. I told him that I would at my expense put a secure breeze block rendered coating round the building. He then told me that fist I would have to apply to the Council for Planning Consent as I was altering the size of the building and secondly informed me that he would then charge me for doing the work. What a wanker I thought. Well I told my friend that all we would do was block the interior if he agreed. He thought that was a great idea. He worked out how many breeze blocks we needed, sand and cement. He went to a local Builders Merchant saw some rods about 1/2" thick, thought they would do for putting up at the windows. They were brilliant. He ordered 550 blocks. Unfortunately for me, the delivery man bought them late afternoon. remember this was November. I innocently said to him. "Just drop them inside and will sort them out". He informed me that all he did was just to drop them off at the nearest point.
Oh dear. 550 breeze blocks to shift and it was already way after 3.45pm. I started to get them inside. Fortunately for me a colleague was passing and we managed to get them inside the building by about 4.30. It was dark though.
My friend organised a cement mixer and the sand to be delivered. I think it was a ton of sand. I had to shovel it in off the grass. I was in my late 50s so I found it hard, but I managed.
My friend then fitted the bars over the windows ready for the blocks to cover the ends.
I told you yesterday that improvements were being done at the car park. It was a private contractor who had the job. Well I told them that when they were ready for a tea break, just come over and a free cuppa would be available. This went on for a few days while my friend was getting the base sorted. Well the owner came one day and saw what we were doing. Told us that he had a load of ties and he would bring them to us. true to his word, the next day he did bring them so now my friend started. I would get the mixer working and my friend would then lay the blocks using the ties to fix them to the building. He worked well and within a few days had the interior completed. There was no rush but we then went again to several Builders Merchants to get a work surface. It had to be so long, he organised everything. He then designed the base and side to make a counter. He bought some fascia to use at the front and wood also. Now the contractor came in handy. We asked if they had a generator. Of course they had. great, so we had power to use tools. To cut a long story short my friend also had the use of a sthill saw. He used that to cut some slabs. It was a grand time but unfortunately cold.
The Council started to mess them about as Councils do. There was a man who was Site Manager. At first he was rather a curt guy but after a few weeks started to loosen up. He would come and tell us all the alterations and stoppages . One was, the work had to be put on hold because of the hibernating badgers.
the final straw was in about March the following year. He finally blew his top. He came in to see us face like thunder. "Do you know the latest thing" he said. "They want us to put some paving slabs on the slope at the entrance to the car park so that the common lizards could sunbathe. I told them, they are called common lizards because they are F*****g common." He then said the official told him that it made no difference because the decision had been made. Also that they had to get a 56lb sack of Johnson's special seed to scatter over the block paving so that grasses would grow.
He was given a date to sow the seed. It was blowing a gale that day and 90% of the seed was just blown out to sea. He just said it was typical Council policy, no sense at all but do it by the book.
My friend then rendered the interior of the property walls and fixed the counter. We used every breeze block so had no waste at all. It looked great and it is still looking good after all this time. I think we did this in 1994/5 I think. To be honest we had a most enjoyable winter doing the work it was a pity it was not warmer. We all got on grat together. More soon.