House Report 17: Stress on the step

Saturday, 1 April

On Saturday we poured the new front step. It took 10 bags of concrete. We did not have a concrete mixer, so it was loads of fun. Mixing concrete has now been added to my list of 'Things I Will Never Ever Ever Do Again Even if Jeff Asks Me To' which previously only had one item on it, hauling 200 pound carpets up stairs while pregnant. Mixing concrete is now verboten in all future activities.

So without a cement mixer, we were mixing concrete in a series of five gallon buckets. Concrete mixing is an extremely time sensitive process - you can only work with it for so long. So it was a constant dance between mixing and pouring. As the morning progressed (and got hotter and hotter), Jeff was getting more and more stressed. Adam and I were water carriers, and we couldn't carry water fast enough or ever have it ready when it was wanted. So I was quite glad when we ran out of concrete and Jeff moved on to trowelling it flat.

He spent ages working on getting a smooth finish. He spent ages with the big giant concrete trowel, and then he moved on to a smaller hand held one. At one point he was nearly done, and he went inside the house to trowel from inside the front door. It was the finishing touch.

And then he stepped out from inside the house on to the wooden form that was holding all the lovely, flat, smooth, wet concrete in place. And he lost his balance. He teetered backward, he teetered forward, and he teetered backwards again. He was going in butt first. Adam and I were spellbound, watching in absolute horror - though after the morning we'd had I have to admit there was a certain element of secret glee in there as well. I'd say 95% horror, 5% secret glee that he was about to get his come-uppance after barking orders at us for the last two hours. And as he was about to go in bottom first, he fell against the stake that was holding the forms in place and it saved him. It held him up long enough for him to regain his balance and walk away. It was amazing. I would have said there was no way we weren't going to be starting all over again... but fortunately for all of our sanity we did not have to. And I was 100% relieved that all of Jeff's hard work over the previous two and a half hours had not been wasted! And now we have a lovely smooth front step, big enough for lots of plant pots and with no butt prints in it. Marvellous.