meeting

on site

It's seven-thirty at night, and this is the first of many meetings this week. At last we're able to start putting some finishes to the shell - at last we've almost got the shell created, some three weeks after it should have been done on the original programme. Sam started work at six this morning and he can't burn the candle at both ends, so I'm here

Here the guys have put down their setting out rows of parquet, they've gone away to give the glue time to set enough for them to be putting the rest of the parquet to.

Upstairs, Wayne the tiler is laying the first of his terracotta tiles. If we ever have a tiling job, Wayne's the man. Unflappable, helpful and very hardworking, Wayne's one of the most skilful guys around. If only every subby you came across was like him!

Actually we have been congratulating ourselves on having a great team on this project. The builder has done everything in his power to get the steels in in spite of the restrictions that have been put on us. The electricians and aircon guys come in and work with us to get it done, our plumber is the best, and the decorators will be starting soon and we know they'll pull out all the stops too.

The bottom of the new stairs are there and those guys have been such a pleasant contrast to the unhelpful people we had doing the stairs and the mezzanine at the Cannon Street job. You couldn't even get them to answer the phone to you or return your calls

Nothing is too much trouble for any of these guys, there's not one person who won't go the extra mile to get the job done