Bigger ship! & We just beat the rain yesterday

How to make a cruise ship bigger! the "Stretching" by 30 metres was completed some time ago but this BBC article has an impressive time lapse video showing how the job was done

Amazing to think the job only took 2 months to complete .

The video is less than a minute long







Mo Farah is branded "A plonker" in this Mail story

he allegedly jumps 100 feet although the "time in the air" on the video seems quite short.

Tombstoning shrieks the headline and some stinging criticism from the mother of Nick Biddlecome, he was paralysed from the shoulders down, jumping from cliffs near Southampton.
Ok tragic consequences of a dare but there's a difference in jumping into murky water in the UK and the obvious crystal clear water of the Caribbean!  Plonker? I don't think so readers comments as usual worth a look! - - -

The wreck of the Costa Concordia  is in the news again although to sadly report the death of one of the divers working on the wreck

Israel Franco Marino a Spanish diver gashed his leg and was trapped underwater for a while.  A colleague rescued him but he died later.  The dive record on the project which is huge had been faultless until this tragedy.

The ship is due to be lifted from the seabed and towed away in June this year. - - -








Closer to home
Our faith in the weather forecast yesterday was rewarded as we started early on the last part of our Winter project to put some decking down.
The wood as I have already mentioned was very wet when delivered and made for some finger numbing work in the cold erecting the first half of the project

Once we had finished the first half we stacked the remaining wood up against the old pergola uprights and wrapped it in plastic.  Even though the top of the stack was open the effect of the wind blowing through the pile dried most of it quite well.  As the stack is right in the middle of where the next bit is going we dismantled it yesterday and stacked it in a convenient place.

Having re-stacked it we removed the old pergola uprights with the rain clouds looming away to the South



The compost bin needed to be re-sited and we used the opportunity to spread a little "compost around the bases of our new Laurel bushes hoping it will provide a good "top dressing" when they start to grow in spring.



With the clouds really building we added another completed job to the never ending "task list" by moving our miniature apple tree

We deemed it unmoveable in July when we erected our "screen" on the bottom terrace.  Having so much enjoyed sitting on this terrace in the course of the summer we determined to move the apple tree in its dormant period to make a litle more room on it.
As I was firming the root-ball in at its new location and adding a little of the compost around its base the first spots of rain appeared and we beat a hasty retreat after waterproofing our newly stacked wood.
Today's forecast is even better with no rain forecast at all!  Mmmmmm the job for today then is to erect the 2 slightly raised base squares of the final bits of decking.

Enjoy the day

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  the streaming birdfeeder cam