We made the steel cages this morning...

Take quite a few rather long bars, tie them with God know how many pieces of steel wire to countless hoops and after a bloody few hours, you've got yourselves a rigid metal cage ready to be hoisted down in the trench, to support our walls.
By the looks of it, you would have thought that our extension will be 10m high... well, not quite, just 2m, I don't know why it has to be this sturdy !!
(the old part of our cottage doesn't have any footings at all, and it's still standing, 500years later...

oh well, this is building regulations for you, over-engineering and more...