Two weeks building houses in the Isle of Man
A volunteer build for a children's respite charity, thirty-five minutes by plane from Liverpool, which is never the answer anybody is hoping for.
“I spent a fortnight building houses for kids” is a sentence that buys you about four seconds of enormous goodwill, and then somebody asks where, and you say the Isle of Man, and you watch the whole thing come down.
It is a real charity. It runs respite accommodation for children with complex needs and their families, the waiting list is long, and the two units we worked on are now full. It is also, unavoidably, a thirty-five minute flight from Liverpool, and there is no version of describing it that sounds like an undertaking.
What I actually contributed
Very little, expertly supervised.
I can now cut a birdsmouth notch to within about four millimetres of correct, which is roughly four millimetres worse than a roof requires. I spent the first three days being gently reassigned. By the second week I had found my level, which was carrying things, holding things, and applying membrane, and I want to be honest that carrying things is a genuine contribution and I have made peace with it.
It rained for nine of the fourteen days. On the good afternoon you could see the Lake District from the site, which everybody photographed and nobody’s photograph captured.
Two roofs on, felted and battened, in a fortnight. I have never in my life been more usefully tired.