Not much Health and Safety

About a hundred yards from my office, looking due south through the square window, a two storey, nineteenth century, artisans cottage is being demolished. It always fascinates me how long it takes to build a house and yet how quickly it can be razed to the ground using just a couple of men and a JCB.

The two men started on the roof on Tuesday, lifting the slate tiles, then taking the battens off before ripping the felt roofing - each stage followed by an almost cermonial launching of the discarded materials into the handkerchief sized garden. What was interesting, and I cannot help notice what is going on as the building is directly in my eyeline above my computer screen, was the lack of any concession to health and safety. Well not quite a total lack, one of the guys was wearing a baseball cap - I can only imagine that at some point in the past he fell off a roof he was working on and the peak stuck in the wet ground. Given the fact that we haven't had any rain for over a week I think that he'll be in for a shock should he slip this week.