Day 57 - When it was all about the gate!

Another busy day with lots of comings and goings - a great visit from some of the New Forest National Park Authority Team this morning for a walking meeting around the site and exciting discussions of future possibilities for partnership delivery!  We're grateful for their time and the support which they are giving us to make sure that our future visitors are well informed about all things New Forest!  We're on their list to get an Information Point on site, along with lots of other great things to make the most of our wonderful location.

We had dramatic excitement early afternoon when our local Elliots delivery man arrived with his HGV and loading crane to deliver some sacks of shingle and stone to improve various areas of the site and the site decided momentarily it didn't want to let him in, or our volunteers on site out....as the padlock on the barrier stopped working.  Despite assistance both on site and remote to try to resolve the padlock situation and allow the nice delivery man access, it took several runs up and down the drive and trips for tools over 30 minutes or so before we could get the barrier up!  We're very grateful for his patience and helpful assistance in the process and he kindly delivered the bags all over the site for us to where they needed to be, despite the delivery delay.  We've given the barrier a talking to and expelled the offending padlock (a repeat offender at this point) from the ranks and its been replaced with a nice new one so hopefully a repeat can be avoided.

Meanwhile, our temporarily trapped volunteers continued to work hard, with curtains being re-hung downstairs in The Lodge, ready for our 24-Hour Sing visitors on Friday (we're getting excited now!). More painting and varnishing thanks to our Volunteer Charley who stopped by to help us get our painting done in time for Friday and we managed to get the barrier open in time for her to leave when she needed to, and in time for one of our contractors to stop by.

Volunteers Alison and Sandra continued their hard work in the service area end of the dining room in Foxlease House and as the photos show, they are definitely winning their ongoing battle to make it fresh and clean again - the fireplace in there looks so much better and the smell continues to be amazing.  We asked how many buckets of water they are up to now and they've used so many they've lost count.  The Singing Washing Machine will get some activity washing their cloths tomorrow to restock the supply for the next round of cleaning and the curtains are now on the list to be washed when we've next got space to dry them.

Our Volunteer Plumber Pete returned and fixed our split pipe (see previous blogs for excitement when that was discovered) and has added a new isolation valve to one of the showers to make it easier to access in the event of an emergency.  We've also consulted with him about the options for adding some outdoor washing up sinks to our planned family camping area, as the first phase of our campsite improvements and we'll be looking to source a couple of appropriately sized stainless steel sinks for that purpose soon.

Volunteer Iain stopped by this afternoon and managed a speedy job for us laying some matting to fix the quagmire around the front barrier to save our visitors' shoes from the mud and the work had the dual effect of smartening up the area around the barrier too!  The barrier is high on our list (or at least Emma's) to think about replacing after today; we were planning to see whether we could fund something with both an intercom and an access button to avoid the current challenges with providing access remotely and the site deciding it wants to be extra-secure (due to misbehaving padlocks) unexpectedly - we'll be looking into that over the coming weeks!

Hopefully less drama, but no less progress tomorrow, Love Foxie x