Blog Archives

Why don't things ever go according to plan?  "Thrives under pressure" is one phrase that never appeared on my CV because I like things to be done one at a time.  But here we are: two posts on one day.  At least, though, I can show you two days'...

It took a while to get the concept of unisex loos through the committee stage - we are so used to the sight of long queues for the ladies' toilets while the men waltz in and out of the gents' in a totally carefree manner that it was hard to get to...

I have been trying for ages to get a picture of the roof over the western extension, and returning from the OCLT open evening on Friday, my tall friend took this for us: There is a link to OCLT (Oxford Community Land Trust) on the website, and if...

. . . and he says, ominously, that there will be some changes on site from Monday.  The two-day course was supposedly a management one, but I was always quietly confident that it was a Charm School thing:  walking the length of a room with a pile...

Reports of youths on the roof of the Community Centre site last night were swiftly followed by a police helicopter overhead.  Coincidence it may have been, but make no mistake, climbing on to the roof of the centre is trespass.  The excuse of...

I like the nuts-and-bolts feeling of prefabricated buildings.  I promised to show you the ceiling of the new youth room in the western extension once the webbing was gone.  As you will see, it has a distinctly utilitarian feel to it: But then, my...

These guys are not as fuzzy round the edges as today's pics might suggest - I'm having trouble with both camera and with Windows (as in computering windows - not building windows) so until Brian of the Court puts his IT skills to work on our...

In the years following the 1950s prefabricated buildings were very common.  Well into the present century, the post-war dwellings that were thrown up "just for now" after the war were something like collectors' items. Even as late as the seventies,...

. . . if you have ignored the instructions: . . . will be to produce a butler genie from the Ali Baba jar . . . . . . because Gordon is busy up in the loft putting in that insulation: . . . and because it's Friday, I imagine Nick is busy mixing the...

It used to be called fibreglass, and, living on an island in New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf, I longed to have a fibreglass boat.  This lightweight material was the new thing and a dinghy of fibreglass was easier to manoeuvre than a clinker-built one. ...