OUR CRANE WENT UP TODAY!

WOW...our crane went up today. It is 80 feet tall and the 'jib' (the bit that sticks out) can reach even further than that.It's job is to lift the heavy things needed to build the new school, the first task will be to lift the concrete pieces into place for the lift shaft in the middle of the building.If you haven't already had a look there are six windows cut in the site fence so people can see in and watch what is going on. There are lower ones so that little folks like us can see and also ones higher up for tall people. There are some on Mount Pleasant Road, at the turning head on Sitwell Road and also from the end of the car park next to the Arts Centre building. Please come and have a look. We are still hoping that we are going to be taken up the crane to see what it is like at the top and how you drive the crane. Apparently the driver stays up there all day...we wonder what happens when they want to go to the toilet? It looks a long way up doesn't it.

GORDON GILTRAP GIG...

Brix and I were lucky enough to be invited along to a gig (concert) to hear a great guitarist called Gordon Giltrap.If you look at 'my complete profile' on the sidebar then you can see our favourite books, movies and music. I (Morta) have been a fan for a long time although I can't play nearly as many notes as fast as Gordon can play them!

Brix and I were allowed to look after the mixer desk with all its knobs and switches and after Gordon finished playing we got to meet the man himself.

Gordon was kind enough to visit our house and he offered me a short lesson. Can you see Gordon and I playing together? Gordon plays a very individual style of rock/folk/ guitar, you can find out more about him and his music if you visit his website where it tells you about all his albums and other gigs and some of the other people he has played with like Rick Wakeman and Brian May. I wonder if he might do a fundraising concert when the new school opens? Are we brave enough to ask him?

http://www.giltrap.co.uk/index.html

Here I am playing my guitar.

Did you know that the sets of strings on a guitar come in different thicknesses? They are called 'gauges' and thin ones are light and easy to play and thicker heavier ones are stiffer and you can play them really hard. I'm not even sure what gauge mine are! Do you know how many strings there are on a guitar?

We were promised a visit to the concrete plant last week but we are waiting to hear from them, in the meantime it looks like we'll be going up the big crane that is going to be put up soon, so as soon as there's news we'll let you know.

See you soon.

Brix & Morta

WHO'S WHO

Jo is the Quantity Surveyor

Her job is to survey the quantities', now what's that mean...well she has to list and count up all the things that make our school. How much concrete, steel, brick, windows and doors and all the other things, then she has to work out how much it all costs.
You have to do lots of counting and measuring with a ruler as well as lots of adding up.

Can you see the pages with all the numbers on. There are hundreds of pages that make up the list of quantities for the new school. when you add all the costs up it is over £4, 000 000. That's over four million pounds, WOW what a big number!
Jo has been in Hospital recently and will not be back at work for several weeks. We hope she gets better soon, we need her to keep her eye on the money!

Get well soon
Brix & Morta
XXX

On site today...
The nursery and early years area is here!










Here we are sitting on the window into the courtyard of the nursery on the lower ground floor.




The retaining walls made of the polystyrene BECO blocks (that we told you about before) are nearly finished.The men you can see are finishing off the waterproofing (that keeps the building dry). It is being stuck to the outside of the wall and the ground has mostly been filled up behind the wall.

In a couple of weeks it is hoped that the ground floor will be cast and then a few weeks after that the steel will arrive.

WHAT A LOT OF VISITORS!

We thought we'd share these pictures as we think they are interesting! They are both 'bar charts'. That is a special picture that shows you how big numbers are. Each 'bar' is pretending to be a number, the taller (or longer) the bar is, the bigger the number.

The chart tells us how many pages of our blog have been looked at each day by our visitors. Across the bottom of the chart are the dates and up the side of the chart are the numbers of visitors. So the higher up the bar goes the more visitors we have had, you can see how this changes from one day to the next. Can you see when we had no visitors?
It was on the 29th of July, that was a Saturday, perhaps everyone was busy doing their shopping.

BUT...LOOK how many visitors did we have on 2nd of August! LOTS & LOTS
This picture is another bar chart. this one shows where our last 100 visitors have come from. They live all over the world. Most of our visitors come from this country, but lots of other people find our site as well. The chart shows how many visitors (across the top) and the countries they come from down the left hand side. Our blog has been looked at by someone in New Zealand! That is about as far away from Sharrow as you can get, it is right over on the other side of the world...a long way!

WHO'S WHO
While Daniel (our work experience student) was with us he did a little project to take us around the office to meet all the members of the design team and to find out what they do. Here is his work...



Tom is the Project Manager ...
his job is to plan and look after the school project from start to finish. He makes sure all of us do our bit and that it costs no more than the money we have! Here he is pointing at the big chart that says when everything is going to happen.
Tom has a toy crane on his desk...can you see us on it?
We hope to be able to go up the big crane when it comes to site!
Tom is at his computer, what do you think he is looking at?




It looks like our BLOG!
Tom checks in regularly just to see where we've been and what we've been doing.

Hi Tom.