11th August Visit to Foresters, Harpenden

As I drove into Harpenden, it was spitting with rain, and I feared it might continue for my entire time on site, so it was not too surprising that Trevor should greet me with “Well, this time you have failed! This is the first time it hasn’t been sunny or at least good weather for your visits?” I think he was pleased that I could not continue with my comments that I often brought sunshine with me!

Jarvis are pressing ahead with the roofs currently and so I made the first task that of climbing the crane tower for some shots either at their level or from above. When later I was alongside the roofers, some plumbers were there too, and they told me to look at the crane hook as someone had high-jacked a flatulent gnome kidnapping it and and had banished it to the crane hook! Boys will be Boys; even when grown men!

The skeletal aluminium framework for partitioning is going in at the ground floor, and more of the underfloor heating piping, and down in the basement which is now a large storage area , plumbing, drainage, electrical cabling and even signage is going in. Looking beyond the skin of scaffolding the final shape is becoming ever more obvious.

Jarvis Foresters Development, Harpenden

As I was parked in the High Street, I was limited to one hour, and on this occasion this was insufficient – the alarm I set on my phone warned me that time was up, but one half of the site I had not even seen on this visit.

I found that on several floors underfloor heating pipes were going in as well as much of the plumbing, so I was going up and down the scaffolding as I was also trying to take note of all the roofwork that was going in – in one area even the tiles were starting to go on, so really I need to pay another visit to get a good idea of what has happened this week.

I am actually falling behind with the post processing which bothers me, and this has come about because I lost time going to Milton Keynes with my Mac, so the Apple Store engineers could reload my system, because the DVD supplied originally would not work, and having erased the disc, I now had no machine until I restored its system, and they could not supply a replacement, but would happily reload one for me, which involved two round trips to Milton Keynes, if I brought the kit in. The issues I had also pointed up a faulty keyboard which they replaced, and they also had concerns over the machine so arranged for me to have it replaced free, so I shall have another machine in my hands only a month after taking delivery of this one. So it’s not all bad news.