One of the nEDgatives...

As I was on my way to the first job today I was looking out the window at the mountains near Brecon and as I was looking I thought that that looked a bit too much like snow on the tops of the mountains. Well it was. So while I worked on the house in Abergerveny (Ab-er-ger-venny) I disninctly felt the negatives of this job. I was literally freezing. I was having to stand still, with latex gloves on my hands while I waithed for the cavity to pump full of insulation and then fill the hole with a handfull of cement. After about half an hour I was starting ot ge thte burning feeling in my hands, when you are getting too cold. In the end it wasn't the end of the world and now that the second job got cancelled I got to go home a bit early. Home now, 1 o'clock in the afternoon on a friday and nice and warm after ahot shower.

Saturedy Drive

Today Sarah an I decided to go for a little drive into the countryside. We headed off in the morning up towards the Brecon Beacons Mountains then up to Brecon town itself. We had a lttle break there, walking around the town centre before heading across to Hay-on-Wye and taking the B roads back to Cardiff. All in all it wasa good day out. By the time we had gotten off the B Roads we had both had enough so we both decided that it was time to head for home.



Some of the highlights of the drive include sliding down a wet hil on my bottom while Sarah laughed, seeing the beautiful countryside that is mostly green and orientating myself with some of the different areas and names that I have heard about for paragliding.

Forking Amazing!

Well, there are these pot noodles that you can just add hot water and they were offering this competition where under random lids you could win an awesome spinning fork. Well, enticed by this clever marketing, I proceeded to buy myself one tub intending to win a spinning fork first time. Well I didn't win, in fact I was totally insulted by the writing under the lid which went; "Bad luck LOSER! Better luck next time". So spurrned on by this insulting piece of marketing I decided to have another go, this time with three different flavours. This ended up with the same result and from that point forward I deceided to forgo any more of these pot noodles.

Now onto the point of this story. Over the last couple of weeks Sarah has been hinting of a present that would be coming in the mail for me. I was totally in the dark as to what it may be. Eventually it turned up and to my total suprise here was a spinning fork! I was stoked. Having already eaten all the pot noodles, I immediatly made up some cheep normal two minute noodles to give it a go. It was an awesome experience. But then I realised the impractiabilities of such a fork and decided that I shall only use it for spcial ocasions.

Well I am really getting on in this new job so far. My first day on the job I waa given the instruction on how to do the blowing of the insulation material. On the second day I was promoted to doing the blowing as well as pointing the holes after I had filled them. Now today, my third day, I was given a chance to drill the holes. Thats all the three major tasks of the job covered. Now all I have to do is to get good at tehm and get my gas safety card and then I will be earning the big bucks, well pounds.

Its been a hard days work

Well not really. I was sent out to a house with a couple of guys called Damien and Ryan. They were really laid back and great to work with and they put extra effort into showing me the tricks of the trade. Well no that there is much to pick up. Basically if you can climb up a ladder then you can do this job. It works like this, one bloke goes around the house drilling 25mm holes all over the place. The next guy, which was me for this day, follows him around and shoves this nozzle into the holes presses a button then stands around talking while you wait for the insulation to be pumped or blown into the wall cavity. That was basically the jist of the job and the hardest part was not climbing the ladders, but making sure that you filled all the holes that the drilliing guy drills. Well dosn't sound lke much and basically it wasn't that much, the only thing that took the longest was waiting for each cavity to be filled. Apart from that thats it. Cavity wall insulation done for one day. We finished the day about at 2pm or so and next week I will be haeding out with a dfferent person, one that is supposed to teach me all the tricks of the trade. We'll see...

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, its off to work I go...

Well what a suprise. I am actually likeing the fact that I am getting up at a nice hour of the morning. 7 am to be precise. However this training is a bit boring. Too much standing around and around, waiting for the next thing to happen. The instructors here still tell you about how speed is the most desirable thing in the job, but half of our time is spent standing around waiting for them to get organised. But it is not too hard and it could be an ok job in the end. Had a bit of work on the cavity wall insulation yesterday, tomorrow will be a test, but for now I am stuck with the loft insulation. Its not that much fun, mostly powerpoints and the covering all the pipes with insulation material.

Insulated

Well tomorrow is a pretty significant day. It means that my lazy couch potato life that I have been enjoying for the last month is coming to an end. Hmmm, Bad times. However it does mean that from tomorrow I am going to be earning some cash! Well, after 5 weeks I will be earning some cash after I have paid off my credit card and the rent that is now due. Well that means that in five weeks I will be able to spend as much money as I want. Woohoo.

As for the credit card bill, that is from the planned trip to Australia over Christmas. Last year I enjoyed a cold christmas, not a white one, so this year it will be back to the normal, hopefully, hot and sunny christmas.

It looks like that from tomorrow there will be no more sleeping in as I have to get to some place on the M4 to meet my co-trainees and from there we will be heading up to Lecister to do our training course. I am a bit aprenhisive as it will be something new and different but it should not be that hard to master. Drill a hole into a wall, pump in some cotton. But we will see.