Worcestershire man makes igloo with washing up bowl and snow
Ben Crutch says it was "like building a sand castle but with ice" and despite it going well, he should have "googled the method".
Tuesday 12 December 2017 18:12, UK
A man who built an igloo in his girlfriend's back garden in Worcestershire says he would like to take tips from "real eskimos" to improve his skills.
Ben Crutch realised when he woke up on Sunday morning that the time had come to tick an item off his "bucket list".
While he had wanted to build an igloo before, "there had never been enough snow".
But after seeing lots of the cold, fluffy white stuff in the garden on Sunday morning, the 29-year-old from Redditch turned to his girlfriend Jodie Giles and said: "I'm going to build an igloo."
Ben admits that Jodie, from Wythall, her brother and his girlfriend thought he was "mad".
Eight hours later, after making about 500 ice bricks and fashioning them into a small home complete with light, a door and a window, he was finished.
The carpenter-joiner learned the process as he went along - admitting he "should have googled the correct method".
He made each brick by packing snow into a small washing up bowl, started laying them down and just "went with the flow".
It was "almost like a sand castle", he said, "but with ice".
Even though he feared there might be an "issue with the roof", there were not any "major disasters".
After he began to make progress, the others joined him, using a wheelbarrow to collect fresh snow.
The finished structure, more than seven feet tall, was cosy. "The ice works as a good thermal wall," Ben said. "It was actually really warm in there."
He added: "It was just really good fun. It was a day's work and it's got a lot more attention than I ever thought it would."
Speaking to Sky News on Tuesday, Ben said he thought it was still standing, but "with a bit of a slant on it", adding that it had gone "a bit wibbly-wobbly".
Asked if he would like to go to a country where igloos are built, he said: "I'd love to. If anyone wants to take me there and put me in touch with some real eskimos that would be amazing."