Peters Birthday

Pizza oven complete, what to build next?

After a hard day on the job that followed a hard night on the beer, I managed to knock the final parts on the head and complete the beast. I shall remember this day, also my mums 60th birthday, for a very long time. This was not only my most challenging building challenge to date, but it has also come out exactly how I imagined it would. The biggest decision now is what to build next?

3 Courses to the top

After another few productive days on the job, I'm now 3 courses from the top. Mother-in-law and Louise have arrived and are helping out well with the kids, the gardening, the washing and the cleaning. I've also had Louise up the scaffold but that's a whole other story. I managed to do the flashing around the chimney today and whilst I was busy doing that, Louise put in another raised bed for me and planted a load more onions.

Only 10 courses of tiles left to go

Finally the end of the tiling is in sight. I'm averaging a row of tiles every hour and a half and I have 10 rows to go. With any luck I may have this roof nailed at the weekend. Then I have a few fancy finnials to sort and a selection of essential pizza oven tools to create. We had slow roast beef in the beast yesterday and it came out great. It must be almost time to start swotting up on my pizza recipes in preparation for the May party.

Pushing on up

Anyone would think that this blog was solely about pizza ovens, but that's not really the case. Yesterday afternoon I repotted my squashes, took a flyer and planted the melons and pumpkins outside, got some of the tomatoes and chillis into the grow bags. This morning saw me make the first few steps up the spire. I've worked out I can almost do a row an hour which is 32 tiles cut on 3 sides. It may be Wednesday before I get a chance to move up higher but we'll have to wait and see. Jane has been busy tidying in preparation for the arrival of her mum and Little Louise on Friday. The kids, as always have just been a pain, too hot, thirsty, hungry, bored, etc. etc...

Pythagoras eat your heart out

Angles, angles everywhere. Where's Fred Dibnah when you need a steeple jack? Well I've made a start on the complex tiling now. I'm reasonably sure that a snail could beat me to the top at my present rate of progression. I've finished tiling the skirt of the spire and I'm very happy with how it's looking. I'm toying with a few ideas for the next stage before I jump in feet first and head on up. This is possibly the hardest my brain has worked since I retired, barring those 6x6 Ken Kens on difficult. That topped off with the 25 degrees of sun means I'm throwing in the towel on the roof until later and I'm heading off to fix the chainsaws instead.

Just some pictures as I'm knackered