The pool steps are finally finished – a builders’ finish if ever there was one. They consist of raw blocks with no surfacing or decoration of any sort, so we now have the challenge of working out how to make them presentable.
Inside steps
Clive went in for a bathe this morning. The photo is of the inside steps, borrowed from the outside pool, which were there to receive him.
The trouble is he found it very cold, primarily due to his lymphedema. The temperature of the water was between 26 and 27 degrees Celsius and I’ve since changed the thermostat so that it’s between 28 and 29 degrees, but he doesn’t think it will make a lot of difference.
I daren’t increase it much more because of the pool liner and also condensation problems in the room so I’m at rather a loss as to what to do.
Any ideas, anyone?
‘Better is the enemy of good’ should be the mantra of the perfectionist.
Interlocking blocks in the pool steps
I’m afraid I haven’t learnt from this gem of wisdom as proved today when laying more blocks for the pool steps.
It was way past lunchtime and we were tired. I was clearing up after laying the eighth and last block of the day when I realised it was too high.
I pulled the offending block out – to Clive’s irritation – and mixed mortar all over again. Half a bucket wasn’t enough, nor was three-quarters. I ended up doing a whole bucketful in dribs and drabs.
The block was too low – there wasn’t enough mortar under it – so I added more. Like Bart Simpson and the serving of lima beans, it was – more, more, more, more - too much.
Clive came to the rescue and tapped the block down with a rubber mallet and the corner broke. That was it then; wherever the block was, it had to stay.
And of course it sticks up almost as much as the first time round.
We did get up early – at 7.00 am - but that’s not what I mean.
I’m referring to Aesop’s fable of the lark, in which Mother Lark is only impressed enough to move her fledglings out of harm’s way when the farmer says he will harvest the wheat himself, rather than waiting for his neighbours to help him.
With this fable in mind, we decided to build the steps up to the pool ourselves, starting today.
First layer of the steps plus tools and materials
The first bit was quite fiddly and involved the following:
- taking off skirting from round the column that the steps will be next to
- gluing pieces of tile on the bare concrete at the back of the diagnostic hollow so the rim will be all the same level
- making shuttering with pieces of polystyrene to protect the copper pipes
- laying a piece of ducting from next to the pipes to a deeper part of the diagnostic hollow to take a humidity sensor in the future
- mixing up concrete, using gravel rather than sand
- pouring the concrete into the diagnostic hollow near the pipes to give the steps an extra solid support
- putting gravel in the rest of the diagnostic hollow and levelling it off
After this, things made rapid progress. We placed 5 (in total) 8-centimetre- thick ‘cordoli’ (heavy concrete curbs) to form the foundation layer of the steps. The front ‘cordolo’ is 12 centimetres thick and so heavy that I can’t even budge it pushing it along the ground.
It was brought into the house by the men who delivered it, along with 132 sacks of pellets for the stove.
One layer and that’s all for today, but we’re on our way.
Good old lark!
It must be by a phenomenal leap that grasshoppers make it over the side of our above-ground pool.
Grasshopper on the edge of the swimming pool
Once in the water, they’re like sailors who deliberately don’t learn to swim so as not to suffer: they drown almost immediately, quite unlike most other insects.
But that’s not accounting for the monster who inhabits the pool from time to time.
She (not that they know it’s a she, or even an animate being) sometimes makes it in time to fish them out … and they’re free!
Wheeee! They jump a couple of meters - 20 times their own length.
Right back into the water.
The monster rescues them again and this time points them in the direction of the blurry green world beyond the turquoise blue one.
Sometimes – very rarely – a grasshopper sits still for a while to recuperate and reflect on its inadequacies. That’s how the photo came about, which is of a very small grasshopper, the sort that is especially athletic.
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