RAINWATER RECYCLING...

What is all this about then?
Well, first you have to dig a very big hole...with the orange digger, then there was some rock in the bottom of the hole and the digger driver had to use the yellow 'pecker' to break it up into small bits so it would come out. Then you have to prop the sides of the hole to stop them collapsing.

So this is what the hole looks like...Well, you know how dry it has been getting in the summer. Not enough rain at the right time and some parts of the country have not been allowed to use their hosepipes to water the garden and things.

Then you put the tank in...
The new school is going to save some of the rainwater that falls on the roof and keep it in a big tank underneath the nursery playground and then it will be pumped back inside the building and will be used to flush all the toilets. This will save using fresh drinking water that the school has to pay for and together with several other water saving ideas this might just save some money for books or a trip.

Then you cover it up! All that will be seen in the playground when it is finished is these two manhole covers, nobody would ever know there is 30,000 litres of water down there. What a lot of toilet flushes!

WE'VE GOT MAIL...

We love it when folks write in to us, but we don't get many e-mails, but if there's anything you'd like to ask or tell us then we'd be please to hear from you. Ella & Molly wrote recently...

Dear Brix and Morta,

If you have been talking to Helen, does this mean you are back from Denmark? How were the windows? Are they going To be nice?

What was flying like? Did Brix snore?
love
Ella & Molly

We cheat...we make 'draft' postings ready in advance (if we're really organised) and we release these when other news is a bit slow. We nterviewed Helen before we went to Denmark and then just uploaded it while we were away. We are back in England but not yet back in Sheffield, we hope to be dropped off at the Architect's office next week and we'll be able to tell you about it and show you where we've been.

ARGHHHHH...

What has happened to the park!

We've been shown some pictures. All (well quite a lot of) the grass has been scraped off the football pitch and it has been surrounded by a fence!!!

Apparently it is because the drilling for the ground source heating (remember that from earlier inJuly-'Monster Machines in our Park' when we told you about it) is going to start soon. We'll post some pictures soon when we get our paws on them.

We've been assured that everything will be put back exactly like it was before.

Well, you can't see much of the school from the bottom end of the park, can you. When the crane goes it won't look much different from here.

OUR NEW SCHOOL!

Wow, we can't believe it! Just a few weeks ago there was only a floor but now the steel frame has gone up and you can see the whole school.

Phil the Kier Quantity Surveyor on site was brave enough to join the 'Crane Club' and climb up to record this view, what a star.

On the left is the hall, the next 'bay' is the kitchen at the back (top of the picture) dining room at the front with a classroom up stairs. The lift shaft (the beige coloured rectangle in the middle of the picture) sits in the middle of the atrium and to the right are more classrooms and the nursery down at the bottom. The nursery is the only bit that hasn't got it's steel frame yet, although it arrived on Monday so it won't be long.

WHO'S WHO

Helen is the Landscape Architect

Her job is to do the design (that's the thinking, research and drawing) for all the area that is outside the building (this is called 'the landscape'). So she does all the playground and sport areas, paths, parking, fences and all the new plants and trees for the school grounds.

Here she is discussing something on the drawings with Geoff, another member of the team. Can you see us? We're listening to what they were talking about, it was about where the bicycle parking spaces were going to go, that's so we can take our bikes to the new school.

Week 40... calendar week that is not construction weeks!
Well after such a slow September all our friends must have looked us up this week! See the big green pointy bit at the right hand side of the graph...that shows that 213 pages of our blog were viewed that week, nearly an all time high, but just beaten by 217 pages in week 30! It kind of makes up for the really low point in weeks 35/36 (28 Aug-11 Sept).

The orange part of the graph shows how many old friends are coming back to see us again, the blue is all our new visitors and the green bit is the number of pages that you all look at.

WE'VE BEEN POSTED!!! We're going to Denmark!

Well,we're not being posted all the way to Denmark we've been sent to Bicester in Oxfordshire to meet Paul who is going to take us. The yellow arrow on the map below shows where Denamrk is from Sheffield, but we've got no idea where the factory is once we're there.

We're going to see where our windows are going to be made and we'll be going in an aeroplane! We've never flown before.

I wonder if we'll be in first class or economy, will I have to share a seat with Brix? I'll need some earplugs as he snores when he is asleep!

See you all soon

Love

Brix and Morta XXX

SEPTEMBER WAS A BIT QUIET!

We only had 269 page visits last month but we had 684 in July. We miss you guys if you don't remember to come and see us. So please add us t your favourites and come back to catch up every few weeks. Why not link to us from your own website. tell your friends and family to look us up send them all an e-mail and tell them that we are here.

We hear that now that the autumn has started and the children are back at school some of them have been allowed to go to site and see the progress of the construction. Perhaps they would e-mail us about what they saw? I think we should pay a visit to school soon...

PUZZLED?
During the summer we visited Lynne and Sue (the headteacher and deputy headteacher) to talk about some things, although we did forget to post this sooner!

We got to do the puzzle on the table in Lynne's office at the junior school. We had a very useful chat about some ideas for the new school including the idea of Sharrow becoming an Eco school... but we'll tell you more about them later.

For more information about Eco-schools follw the link on the side.

We drove the crane!!!
After we'd been watching the driver for a bit he let us drive the crane! I had the radio and the instructions and Brix steered the joystick. There can't be many buddies that have done that.

Can you see the big red arm.

We can't remember what it was we picked up, but we're pretty sure it was a piece of steel!

...WOW...

Ever wondered what the view from the crane is like? Well we got to see it last week!!!

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We had to climb up all the way from the ground up to the cab. The cab is the white box that sits at the top. It has lots of windows so you can see down below and it turns round with the crane.

This is the view from the top, we were so grateful to the crane driver for letting us into his cab. you can see it was raining and the climb was a bit cold and wet and the cab is cold and draughty!

The driver has a seat and two joysticks, just like a computer game. They control the turning (rotation) as well as the cradle that goes out along the arm to pick things up.

The directions are received/given by radio (walkie/talkie), Brix liked using the radio.