Boulders and wood arrives

Boulders and wood arrives at Merseybank 

9 large Scottish granite boulders arrived at the corner of the parade of shop on Merseybank Ave. Now we can move on to the next stage of greenifying this rather desolate corner with some raised beds

Today, the wood we had ordered from Emerge arrived. As you can see it was a very tight fit for the lorry to get down the alleyway

It got there eventually (well done lorry driver)

The heaviest parts were two large wooden platforms which we hope to use as a base for doing the bike repairs on, under the rain shelter we plan to build in the back yard

A bit of a squeeze getting the platform under the gate

It required 4 people to carry each platform (we had two)

Irritatingly we couldn't find the key to the lock on the gate of our back fence. So we had to stack up the wood outside until we eventually unscrewed the bolt on the gate

Here is Roger stacking the wood inside our yard

These 3"x4" lengths of old joists (in great condition) will provide the posts for the rain shelter (2 x 2.6m & 2x2.4m)

Farewell to Hywel

Farewell to Hywel

Sadly (for us) this week was Hywel's last one at the Men in Sheds on Merseybank Avenue. He is moving back to South Wales where his family comes from. Hywel helped found the South Manchester Men in Sheds and has been an important member ever since. We shall miss him and wish him well. 

Hywel is also a teacher of Aikido, a form of Japanese martial arts. In fact, that is how we met as his Chorlton Aikido class took place next to the Chorlton Good Neighbours office. As a result of our meeting we decided to try and set up a Chorlton based Men in Sheds

Here are some photos from Tues 20th Nov. Rick is pictured helping finish off some stacking shelves for the Charity shop 3 doors down, and Bob & Chrsi are seen giving some training to June in using an electric drill to prepare a tool board & using rawlplugs to put it on the wall

Work has already started on mending bikes in some lovely Autumn sunshine

 Meanwhile, Bob & Chris model the lastest  in shorts for older men

 

 Pop up Shop, Quids in and the New Charity Shop

The Pop up shop is 2 doors down from SMMiS. This where the Quids in Food Club is based.  Quids In offers up to £15 worth of food for just a £2 weekly membership fee, which helps pay Fareshare, the charity that supplies the food. Unlike food banks, Quids In is a membership offering fresh and chilled items that can be difficult to find and expensive to buy locally


They had a craft session yesterday when
  
Rick & I went round to say hello. They has needle work, crocheting, knitting and car making on the go. Even better there were hot drinks and cakes too

  

We also had a visit from the recently opened BNCA charity shop or boutique as it is called. They only wanted a couple of holes drilling in the sign so they could hang it up, but it is good to be in touch with our neighbours

The day the concrete arrived

Making the Concrete base for the Bike Shed

We are assembling a large metal shed for our Bike Project. We realised we would need a level concrete base. After advice from John, we constructed a frame which was level and then ordered some Barrow Mix concrete, which was delivered yesterday. Fortunately, Chris, and experienced joiner was there to direct proceedings. He nailed the hardboard lining which had been made the previous week which would prevent the liquid concrete from spilling out

This is a video of the arrival of the concrete, it being barrowed in to the yard and dumped into the frame. After much shovelling  and then tamping and scraping of the concrete to make it level, the job was done. Next week we will get back to assembling the shed to put on the concrete base

Slowly assembling the Shed....

Hywel, Rick, Jim   and Saleem get stuck in to assembling the bike storage metal shed

     

                        

Terry contemplating where the rain shelter might go

Wayne who just lives across the road came in with a bike for us to have

This is where the bike stand will go on the right

      

                         .........and on the left

Meanwhile Bob is still working on the mud kitchen for the nursery