The short holiday weeks are behind us.

     I know I have fallen a bit behind in my posts, but you really didn't think I was going to keep this up did you? How much can be said about concrete, well actually quite a bit.

     Concrete is a composite material composed mainly of water, aggregate, and cement. Often, additives and reinforcements are included in the mixture to achieve the desired physical properties of the finished material. When these ingredients are mixed together, they form a fluid mass that is easily molded into shape. Over time, the cement forms a hard matrix which binds the rest of the ingredients together into a durable stone-like material with many uses.

Famous concrete structures include the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal and the Roman Pantheon. The earliest large-scale users of concrete technology were the ancient Romans, and concrete was widely used in the Roman Empire. The Colosseum in Rome was built largely of concrete, and the concrete dome of the Pantheon is the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

After the Roman Empire collapsed, use of concrete became rare until the technology was re-pioneered in the mid-18th century. Today, concrete is the most widely used man-made material (measured by tonnage).

     Much more could be said about concrete, but we should discuss our job on the island. We all love the holidays, and I trust yours' were great. Day and I spent Christmas Day in Jersey, with her family, and that weekend with my family, and we were very happy to spend New Years Eve alone, just her and I. Anyhow, I do love the holidays, but two short weeks, back to back, can really screw up a job. The Monday before Christmas, if you remember, we stayed late to get a pour ready for Tuesday morning, which was cancelled due to sea conditions.

Wednesday was Christmas Eve, we worked a half a day, in the pouring rain I might add. Thursday was Christmas and Friday we took off. So, we pour on Monday the 29th, not bad right, came out pretty good.

We worked Tuesday, and a half a day on Wednesday to get ready for a pour on Friday the 2nd, but the ferries were cancelled. Ok, we will pour on Monday, but the ferries got cancelled. That brings us up to date. Our first wall pour

has now been cancelled twice, along with a delivery of materials that we desperately need to continue building, because we are not pouring, but if we are not pouring, that is because the ferry has been cancelled, and we aren't going to get the materials either. Let's hope for calmer seas tomorrow, and some concrete. Now the office is calling, wondering how things are going. Well, we have used up 30% of our man days, to pour just 20% of the concrete. This is not terribly unusual, jobs start out slow, and pick up, but these needs to pick up. It won't take long for a concrete job to go to crap, if you can't pour concrete.