Friday already

Friday already

Hectic week, didn’t even get chance to write up about Sunday and Monday, but never mind

Caching
No caching on Sunday,or Monday but Monday night a new cache published in Baguley behind Wythenshawe hospital, so thought I’d try for a FTF (first to find) buty failed, wasn’t a nice place either, but now the owner has uploaded the old photos to show what the building, an old lodge. Looked like 60 years ago and how it looks now, derelict. Makes the point of the cache a little better.
After the failure emailed Battleduo who did get the FTF at 11am, I was there at 6am,to ask where it was hidden, so now I know so will return.
Wednesday no caching but Thursday got up early and went to find 2 more of Mr Tibbs caches, Ees Trees and Birch Trees, both are in Ees nature reserve on the banks of the Mersey opposite Sale water park..
2 quick finds. Takes us up to 1040 finds

Canals
Watched a BW work boat lock up the Ashton canal past the site on tues afternoon, seeing the BW lads doing that always makes me want to try for job working with them, moving the workboats, clearing overflows etc, easy life? Maybe, but the grass is always greener.
Anyway they came back down today as stu and I was showing a work placement student the joys of the construction trade,(he wasn’t iompressed especially with the weather, it was a heavy Manchester drizzle) In the hold of the workboat was a lock balance beam, wonder where that came from?

Not seen many boats going through the locks this week, maybe because I’ve been hiding in the cabin.

Work
Wet, wet and wet, I was up on the building on Monday, warm it was so took off my fleece as I assisted stu and scott in plumbing and setting out for the precast columns,
Found out whilst I was up there that during Saturday the marked up drawing I’d done for Tony, the Foreman, had blown off the top of the building landing some 300m away on great ancoats street, needless to say the lads didn’t go and get it but carried on putting up the columns, trouble is that they put the columns in the wrong positions as we are getting near to the top of the building and some change, so for the first 5 hours of Monday was spent lifting out precast columns and into their correct positions. Anyway I digress, took my fleece off and hung it on the placing boom and after seeing the columns in the wrong position I headed back to the site cabin to check and get a new drawing, left the fleece up there thinking I’d get it later , by the time I got back up there they had lifted the pedestal up so the top is at level 18 and left my fleece up there, its still there now Friday 3pm as there is no access up onto the platform without a 6m long ladder so I am stranded without my work fleece, though bit was a great source of amusement for the chippies and scaffs when the wind got stronger and I was up there without a coat and yesterday marking out the windows and vent holes in shear wall L I got soaked in the rain, it lookede like I was entering a wet tshirt competion, which wasn;t a pleasant site with my physique he he

Due to the rain we have had quite a few breaktime conferences in the cabin, as stu says most are those priceless conversations ranging through experiences, philosophy and what the wife did last night.
Must start setting some of these down here.

Today Friday, we discussed the anniversary of the battle of paschendale, 3rd battle of Ypres in WW1, the radio had said that the queen had attended the 90th anniversary at the cemetery there and went for a very long walk through the gravestones, 500.000 men killed or injured in 3 months on both sides allied and German, that’s 1 million men!!!!, the majority of the graves have an inscription soldier who is known only to god.
This led onto the interning of 3 lancashire fusilers after their remains were found on a WW1 battlefield in france or Belgium and how they had managed to identify one of them afdter 90 years buried.
This led onto further macbre stories of finding a dozen soldiers still standing in their trence when it was filled in by the bombardment, buried alive.
Tony then mentioned his father who was wounded at Dunkirk and again at the Normandy landings, an uncle who was captured on the beach and spent 5 years in a POW camp, a story of how if they found a bottle rub a string round it till it gets hot then crack it on a stone and you get a good cut, then smooth off the top with a stone grind/ sanding to make a cup and that’s what they did in the POW camps, another story about the same uncle he woke up after being captured in a German field hospital with 2 doctors arguing over him about whether they could save his leg or amputate it, luckily they managed to save his leg, other members of the family were in the Navy and sunk 3 or 4 times and another drove ( is that the right word) landing craft and was decorated for it after ferrying troops ashore in Sicily.
He also related a story that his father told that at the wake of his grandfathers funeral during WW2 all the sons had managed to make it to the funeral, from the various ships or army units and were in the house afterwards when 2 bowler hatted men turned up at the door asking for the grandfather, who they wanted to intern for the duration him being of Italian descent, needless to say they were sent packing, which is a lot politer than the words Tony said they used.

Another Gem today, Tony mentioned that he had been woken up by his wife because a car alarm was going off in the street, He wasn’t sure whether it was his as he hadn’t heard it go off yet, newish car, so he headed down stairs popped his head out and checked, went back up and told her it wasn’t his car , she was still irritable because the alarm was still going off it being 2am, so as he couldn’t do anything about it he says,” Love are the tissues on your side of the bed?”;
“why?” asks his wife,
“Give us two here then.” And she did, he proceeds to demonstrate how he rolled the tissues up and stuck them in his ears, laid back and went to sleep. We were all rocking at this.
He then said that his wife tried to talk to him but he stayed there with his eyes shut pretending to go to sleep and pretending not to hear her….

I think this may turn into a diary of stories we tell to each other while here at work.