the new deck

The week before my family was due to arrive (or as Garn used to say 'Royalty') S decided that the deck really needed to be replaced. I questioned the logic of this as I has spiders that I had to ask to leave and numerous other things to tidy. But as it turned out S was right in suggesting it. The removal of the boards revealed that they had been supported by, well, nothing. That really is a floating floor. All we needed is everyone to gather at one end of the deck(like they were at Jack's first birthday), make a sudden movement and they'd be propelled into space like a giant springboard. It could have been very exciting.
S removed the boards and did things with joists and cement and bolts and collected his cypress pine boards from Narrandera (what a great smell) and proceeded to lay the boards. He was working with two drills and even so it was slow going and the deadline (ie arrival of guests) loomed.
A drill bit snapped and things looked dicey. They looked worse when he realised he'd miscalculated the amount of timber he needed. But he got it finished and it looks great.