A Sea of Hi-viz
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| Big Yellow Crane looms over the dovecote. Photo: Su Hurrell |
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| Contractors digging up Main Road. Photo: Su Hurrell |
The Court is a sea of hi-viz vest and hard hats, as contractors work on site. Main Road, outside Betley Court was dug up, so a new power supply can be connected. Utility contractors have been dragging new cabels across the site, so it won't be long before the electricity is connected, and we can boil a kettle for a cup of tea.
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| View from the cricket field, showing just how massive the crane is. Photo: Su Hurrell |
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| The south elevation. The wall above the middle bow needed little persuasion to come down. Photo: Su Hurrell |
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| Frightening - these large tiles have stabbed into the lawn after falling from the roof. Phot: Su Hurrell |
When I left Betley Court just after lunch, work with the crane had stopped. The wind, which was a breeze at ground level, was too high (about 14 mph) for the crane to operate safely. However, the main tasks it was being used for have been completed and it looks like the Big Yellow Crane will be on its way soon. Most likely, it will be replaced by smaller ‘cherry pickers’ - or aerial work platforms - lifts to complete the current phase of work. The remaining work of this phase is replacing some lintels, pointing loose bricks and weatherproofing one wall (which for 200-odd-years of its life was an internal wall, but now the roof’s gone, is to all intents and purposes, an outside one)
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Big Yellow Crane - going to miss this friendly giant on the Betley skyline! Photo: Su Hurrell
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Elsewhere,
the least damaged flats are being spruced up. The two Mr O’s, Melvyn and Shane
have had to go out and replace every little thing they used around the Court.
All our maintenance equipment burnt in the fire, so paintbrushes, dustsheets, buckets
of paint, and even ladders were all on the shopping list this morning. I’d also
invited a cleaning contractor over, to price up a spring clean, and she arrived
in very smart office attire. The first thing we had to do is kit her up with a
hard hat. Her comment was, “this is the only time I’ve ever been asked to wear
a hard hat when pricing up a quote for cleaning!”
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| Dahlias - Bishop of Llandaff, earlier in the summer. Photo: Su Hurrell |
I had a
mid-week panic when I spotted, we were to get our first really hard frost of
the winter. I hadn’t got around to digging up the dahlias yet, for safe keeping
away from the worst of the winter weather. Dahlia tubers are rather like pointy
potatoes. They grow in untidy clusters just under the soil, and like potatoes, succumb
to sub-zero temperatures. The idea is you should dig them up and store them in
a frost-free place like a garage. Leave them out all winter, and come the
spring, you have rotting, putrefying mush instead of tubers, and they will not
grow. I’ve made quite an investment in time over the past three years,
propagating these dahlias (Bishop of Llandaff, a personal favourite – nice red
flowers and bronze foliage), so it was quite important to get them into
storage. We grow spares on the allotment at home. If you’d been there late on
Monday evening, you would have witnessed the spectacle of me and Nigel, in the
pitch black, torches in hands, wearing our gardening slippers (obviously)
trying to locate and dig up the dahlia tubers in the dark. All the while,
trying not to tread on the garlic and leeks planted in the same plot. I’m just
pleased none of the neighbours called the police!
All best wishes
Ladybird Su
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