Uncovered the concrete and the surface is perfect, ready for laying blockwork. We went to Travis Perkins and picked up 12 blocks, just so we could get started over the weekend, the majority of them arrived at 8am this morning. The first job is to set out the corners. We did this by smearing a thin layer of mortar on the foundations, and dabbing a plumb bob into it in several locations from the gridline above, then connecting the dots with a straightedge and a trowel, to form a corner. Here's Emma laying some mortar:

Here's a finished corner:Here's Emma laying the second corner block. Note the lifting technique used here - you need to use your back, in a twisting jerking motion. The other block in the picture is just placed there, aligned with the marks we made earlier, to mark where to put the corner block:And here's a part-finished corner:We have three courses of blockwork to build, so we'll put another two blocks on top of this to make a finished corner, then all we have to do is join the corners up. We did three corners like this on Sunday, then stopped for lunch because we had run out of blocks! I spent the rest of the afternoon taking my Alfa Romeo to pieces to try and locate a post-throttle air leak, and finishing the paintjob on the Toyota, which now looks like this:

Despite being 30 years old, it still starts first time and is fast becoming my weapon of choice, preferred over an Italian coupe with twice as much power and lots of modern comforts! Im not sure Emma agrees, but I think it's awesome :)

A big thankyou to my uncle John, who brought his cement mixer here for us to use.