Three Dont Tango 26

I set the alarm for half past five, and go to bed early. I'm fast asleep before Annabel comes to bed.
I suddenly wake up. I look at the clock. It's ten to four. I turn over wondering if I can get back to sleep.
Suddenly I wake up. I look at the clock. It's twenty to five. I can't really go back to sleep now. I turn over. The trouble is, it is so nice and warm in bed.
I look at the clock. It is now five to five. This is ridiculous. Annabel is fast asleep. Of course, she doesn't have to get up. I turn over.
Suddenly I wake up. Heck, the clock! I peer at it. It is ten past five. This is just plain silly, I might as well get up.
Instead I just lie there. Suddenly I look at the clock. It is twenty past five. There is nothing for it, I have to get up. I go downstairs and get myself some breakfast, get my things together, and load up the minibus. It's half past six by the time I leave. It is still pitch dark.
I have never had to drive so far to work. I have to get all the way to Newbury. I am there by five past eight. I park in the driveway and walk down the drive to the field behind the houses, and stand looking out across the sloping field. There is a grey mist of snow as far as the eye can see. The trees at the bottom of the valley stand out a darker grey, and the fields on the other side of the gently sloping incline divide themselves into dark and light grey squares edged by darker grey hedges. Everywhere is a patchwork of greys. There are five, six, or seven different greys everywhere you look. There is an eerie silence. Nothing moves, and nothing makes a sound. At my feet the tussocks of grass are slowly gathering a damp white foam, and I gaze abstractedly at the greys and whites as the world turns gradually into a blank screen sputtering with static.
There is an eerie grey light. As I look out across the field the snow begins to fall steadily from the leaden sky. I have to turn this blank field into a building site. I have to get footings marked out, and they must be exact.
I feel terribly alone. I am on the verge of tears. How do I get myself into these situations? The things I do for money. I walk slowly back to the minibus, get out my lump hammer and a bundle of sticks. As I stand there with the back door open a JCB comes chugging up the hill.
I put the tape across the site while the driver stands in the snow rolling himself a cigarette. I measure out the length and breadth of the bungalow and add about three metres to each side. Then I try to get levels, as the ground slopes away to the south.
"Shall I start clearing the site then?"
"I just want the top six inches taken off this area." I point to the space I have just marked out.
"Where do you want it put?"
I mark out my datum line. "I shall want the level along that line to be the datum, and everything uphill to be sliced off and banked immediately south of the line to form a patio area, probably about three metres wide all the way along."
I go back to my measuring and the driver back to his machine, which shortly gives a business-like roar and lurches into action.
It's almost lunch-time when he finishes clearing the area of the proposed driveway and the building area. He sits in his cab to eat his sandwiches while I get out my tape and sticks again, and start measuring in earnest.
I have ordered a Canadian-style timber frame building, and my footings not only have to be square, they have to exactly fit the building. If I don't want to waste the money it's cost me to hire the JCB I have to have my measurements exact to within one centimetre, and I have to have the whole thing set out within about half an hour.
I measure along one side where the bungalow will go, then along the front. Then I go back to my starting point and take a diagonal across. Then I move to the end of the first wall line and take a diagonal to meet the first mark, describing an arc for about six feet in the mud. Then I measure the other two walls along to my new stick, thus producing a cocked hat of sticks. By re-measuring I eventually get the sticks to home in on one spot. I reckon I am at most two centimetres out.
I mark out the lines for the trenches, and my driver gets stuck in again.
It is about quarter to four, as it is beginning to get dark again, that he finishes, rolls himself another cigarette and disappears, the sound of the engine gradually fading as the JCB goes down the hill.
I walk along the trenches checking the levels all round. There are places where I will have to step down the concrete.
As I climb out of the trench I turn to look down the hill towards Newbury. The snow is still gently falling, but it is a wet snow that doesn't settle. Across the other side of the valley I can see the lights of one or two houses.
It is getting quite dark by now. I walk back to the top of the field to the end of the driveway. Standing there looking back over the day's work I feel terribly lonely, and very vulnerable. I am also completely exhausted. It is the first time I have had to set out a site for a new house. I hope I have done it properly.
Feeling vaguely worried, I get into the car and drive out of the mud, and down the hill into the village to begin the hour and a half drive home. As I drive down the motorway I begin eating my sandwich lunch, realising I am famished, and longing to get back to the warm house, to security, the warm cosy Annabel, and a big dinner.

---