The obvious questions is why did we not pour the whole foundation in one go? You may have seen mention of the problem, we are 1/3 of a mile from the road down a dirt track. The concrete lorry would not come down the track. We looked at pumping the concrete, the nearest road point is 225m away, which made it cost prohibitive, before you considered there is a cliff in the way. We were left with emptying the concrete into dumpers, and brining it down the track. As the dumpers could not get to the trenches to tip, we then had to use an excavator to empty the dumpers, and fill the trenches. To get the excavator into position we need to drive it over trenches. Nobody would hire out a portable concrete pump that we would not fill directly from the delivery lorry. The end result is to break the whole job down into stages. All of this concrete activity was seriously time limited, we are 45 minutes drive from the nearest concrete batching plant. The drive down the track takes about 5 minutes.

The concrete truck arrives, we are all ready to go. The road is a 1:8, so lets hope he can get in the gate.

Fill the dumper. A 5 tonne dumper takes about a cube of concrete, as you can't heap it up, and we also have a slope to get down. The second dumper is smaller at 3 tonne.

Empty the dumper

And fill the foundation trenches, this is where the hard work starts, I have 4 people helping me, all driving machines, and I get to drive the shovel and the float.

Before the workers leave for the day they dig the foundation trench for the second pour. This can all be filled directly from the dumper, so we say goodbye to the excavator.

Its finished. As it's a very hot day, a water is put onto the setting concrete to stop it drying out before it sets. Its at this point that I decide to start getting ready for the next pour. IN the process I catch my hand on the end of one of the steel rebar - blood everywhere. Its at this point I discover the nearest hospital is over an hours drive away. Luckily the local doctors stitch me up. The second pour is now delayed, till I can get some decent rubber gloves.