Rebar, tree huggers & rain

It's been a busy week. The steelwork turned up on Tuesday (with more on Thursday) so the builders have been setting out the rebar for the retaining walls. Progress has looked slow after the drama of the excavation, with a lot of time involved in setting out the reinforcement and wiring it all together. The delay in getting it on site has meant that the concrete pour now won't be until next week.

Mid week we had a phone call from the builders to say we had a 'planning observer' and a 'tree hugger' on site claiming we don't have planning permission. They'd flashed a business card claimimg they were from the local council so the builders believed they were legitimate and let them wander round our garden and take photos. We spoke to our planning officer who knew nothing of any visit and had no idea who or what a 'planning observer' was! After 24 hours wondering who had been snooping around our garden, it turns out it was a 'tree protection officer' from the council - he contacted us to point out that the spoil heap could be having a detrimental effect on the Horse Chestnut tree. As if we would want to damage the tree! And with the spoil heap being more than 10 metres awy from the trunk we can't see that it'll have any detrimental effect for the (hopefully) short time that it's there.

After two weeks of dry weather the builders are worried about rain and the impact it may have on the soil heaps. Once they get the concrete in they can do a load of backfilling and get rid of a lot of the spoil, but in the meantime it's towering over the footings and house, causing the builder to have few sleepness nights! Rain has arrived this afternoon and it hasn't been a problem, but tomorrow's forecast is a lot worse - hopefully the worst will miss us leaving the piles of soil/clay intact and the trenches free of debris so the concrete pour can happen as planned on Tuesday.

We'll all be a lot more relaxed once we get out of the ground...