More on the pool's progress

We now have a row of beautiful blue tiles along the top of the pool walls and coping stones to round it off nicely.

Here's a closer view.

Here is the tiler, whose name is Sun, cutting one of the coping stones into exactly the right shape.

I was particularly impressed with the way he tiled around the curves in the pool walls.

Au Revoir Reverend Torchon

Last Sunday saw the last service in Forestiere of our wonderful minister, Marcus Torchon. A collection had been taken for him and his family (my contribution was a cheque drawn on my English bank account) and during the service members of the congregation queued up to offer personal gifts and tokens of appreciation.

He is being sent to England - to the Wirral - and, knowing the difficulties I found in adapting to the way of life here, I am concerned that he will find the British people cold and unfriendly. He asked me if he were likely to encounter racism and I had to say yes. However he also told me that his new parish contains a large number of West Indians, so he will be among friends.

He has promised to come back to St Lucia, and asked us all to keep a spare bedroom ready for him and his family when they return. No problem there!

In her speech of thanks, Congregational Steward Christine commented on how much Reverend enjoys socialising with his parishioners.

In his response, Reverend told us that he has no time for what he called 'pulpit ministers'.

'People don't remember sermons', he said, 'People remember friendships.'

I'm not sure about not remembering sermons - he's an excellent teacher and I've learned loads from him - but it's his kindness, his welcome, and his recognition of me as a person, a valued member of his congregation, that I shall never forget.

Wife, Sylvia, gets a hug from a member of the congregation. She was very moved by the occasion, dissolving into tears at one point during her speech of thanks.

She, too, will be greatly missed.

Their small son was rather bewildered by the proceedings.

Penny looking balefully out from inside her home-made Buster collar.

This is the door to the pump house. I think we shall need some steps putting in here.

Note the avocados on the tree in front. You can tell when these are ripe, if you shake them and can hear the stone rattling inside they are ready to pick.

If they drop off too soon you can put them in a drawer (not on a window ledge) and they will finish ripening in there.

This is the shallow end with steps going down into the pool.

'Tis a bit big, innit?

The circular holes in the walls are for underwater lights!

(Lukas looks on with interest.)

They've built a little retaining wall here to stop the rest of the garden sliding down into the pool.

The rest of it looks like this.

Next the pool 'deck', as Philius insists on calling it, (the backfilled area surrounding the pool) has been covered with reinforced concrete, including the roof of the pool house.

The reinforcing bars rest on the walls of the pool house and the wooden support will be removed once it has thoroughly gone off.

Oops!

The hole around the pool is now being back-filled.

Some of the earth Philius originally dug out was saved in large piles around he hole especially for this purpose. Unfortunately he didn't save enough and he's had to have a whole load more trucked in. This is in a huge heap at the side of the road and is having to be laboriously barrowed round the pool!

He isn't very happy about this!

Lukas and Fifi having a snog.

Shortly after this I noticed him carefully washing her feet. Very Biblical!

I took this photo of him from the balcony outside.

Splash the kitten stayed with us for a couple of days en route to his new home. He now belongs to Julius and Andrina's grandson and sleeps on his bed.

Some of the SLAPS pups that caused my 'Candid Camera' adventures.

I didn't realise what the one on the right was doing until I downloaded the pictures and looked at them on the computer!

These are the steps going down into the 'shallow' end.
There will be a ladder going down into the deep end, which will be 6'. I didn't want it deep enough for diving because I want my pool to be an oasis of tranquility.

Philius tells me that no hotel is now allowed to build a pool deeper than 4' in case drunken tourists fall in and drown! Don't they know you can drown in 6" of water?

This silvery thing is not, as someone suggested, where I keep the money I bring over from England, but the pool filter. It will live in the pump house.

It will be filled with a special kind of sand that removes particles of dirt as the water is pumped through it. Every now and again you have to clean the filter by reversing the direction of the water flow. I'm wondering how well it's going to cope with dog hairs!

And building the walls.

Laying the foundation for the pump house, where the pool filter and pumping mechanism will go.

The inside walls are now being plastered with yet more cement in preparation for the application of the Diamond Brite interior finish, topped off with ceramic tiles.

Cement was then poured in to fill the gap between the two walls and create a kind of 'crown' on the top.

If I venture to wonder whether the whole thing might be a little over-engineered, Philius tells me that water is very heavy and very strong and its container needs to be man enough for the job.

Fiberglass shells can only be used for small pools, not 'hotel sized' ones like mine, it seems.

Once inner and outer walls were completed, shuttering was erected around the top.

(The 'hole' in the front is for part of the filtration mechanism.)

Sheltering from the rain!

This is what the whole plant looks like. They seem to produce young shoots fairly readily, so we should be able to divide them later.

Isn't this gorgeous? Pat has brought me several for my garden.

Does anyone know what they are? They grow quite tall - about 4'. Lilies? Gladeoli?

Nobody here seems to know what they're called.

Pool Progress

The outer wall was built first and they are now in the process of building the second wall inside it.

When this is complete, shuttering will be placed all round the structure and concrete poured into the space between the two walls.

I think the pool is still going to be here for years after my house has fallen to bits!

Then the concrete was added. As you can see here there are also vertical steel rods to help support the walls. There are two concentric rows of vertical rods as well.

These were carefully threaded through the centres of the blocks with which the walls were built.

The bottom of the pool was covered with a membrane and on top of this was laid a double layer of steel rods forming a kind of grid pattern. These were to be the reinforcement for the reinforced concrete.

You can see here, I think that the pool is shaped like a grand piano!

Some faces to put to the names

The Boss - Philius The Pool Builder!

This is wonderful Pat, who does my garden, paints my house, cleans my gutters and roof tanks and generally looks after me. He also has an enormous wooden spoon - but I've never heard him say a malicious word about anybody.

We have agreed that from 1st July he will give me one day a week and just do whatever needs to be done. It's very reassuring to know I have someone so genuine and trustworthy to call on if I need help with anything.

PoolSaga Day 3

Unfortunately they had dug out too much earth and needed to put some back.

A truck was therefore summoned to do this and deposited a load of earth to fill in the deficits.

I don't know whether this was MY earth coming back from where it had been dumped, or not!

It then had to be barrowed to where it was needed.

Once the depth and level had been sorted out the earth had to be rammed down to make sure it was firmly compressed, with a kind of jack-hammer I've not seen before.

(This actually happened on Day 4 but it seems to fit in nicely here!)

PoolSaga Day 2

The balletic JCB driver did not live up to his reputation on the second day. He lost control of his fiery steed and mashed up (how I love that expression!) my fence big time!

Philius has promised to replace it, making it sound as though I shall be better off because of the destruction of the original! Problem is that the dogs are not now contained so they have to stay indoors and be taken out on the lead for 'bathroom breaks' during the day.

However we have a huge, stepped hole! This is where trust comes into it!

They measured, pegged and marked out the area that the pool would occupy.

PoolSaga Day 1

This was quite a scary moment - the JCB taking its first bite!

I had now passed the point of no return!

The JCB (backhoe, as they say here) comes onto my land and extends his bucket arm to draw up the next few scoops of earth.

Philius (standing on left of backhoe) is giving advice. You can tell which is Philius in the following pics - he's the one who never gets dirty!!!

He dug out slices of earth with the small end and then turned round and shovelled the loose earth to where he wanted it with the broad end.

I was transfixed both by the flexibility with which he simply swivelled his seat round and worked with the other end of the machine and also by the almost balletic precision with which he could place the bucket or the plough - he could move a small amount of earth in a small direction in the way you or I would use a teaspoon to straighten sugar in a sugar bowl!

There were a couple of tree stumps on the perimeter of the area to be dug out and Philius asked if I'd like them to remove these.

One of them had been a diseased Jackfruit tree and the other a coconut tree which was taking all the light and water from a neighbouring avocado pear. I love avocado so had asked Dixon to cut both trees down.

The JCB dug up both stumps with ease.

This is Philius (with his back to us) and Gibbs doing some measuring up as the digging proceeds.

End of Day 1. Note the depth they've dug down to - the height of the van!

As they hadn't finished, they left the JCB here overnight. There was nothing to keeep it in - the fence was down - but it seemed happy enought to stay here until tomorrow.

Danger! Men at work!

This is Pat and his son Manches (I'm sure you don't spell it like that but I remember it as the beginning of 'Manchester'!) painting my roof. Manches is the one waving to camera.

Roof is finished. The red roof below is the porch over Marcella's front door. This, and the roof of the gazebo, will have to manage with primer only at the moment as I can't afford to buy any more green paint!

Spot The Difference!

Hasn't Pat done a superb job here? He's now just started painting the roof, which caused a little discord. He wanted to paint it red, but I thought it would look like a Meccano house so I've bought the same green colour in roof paint, much to Pat's disgust!

He's always winding me up but is a very kind man and totally, totally honest. He also seems to have green fingers - and not just when he's been painting! I'm really lucky to have him around.