Day 64 - When the team worked until there were starry skies (or when Foxies were dressed)
Day 64 - When the team worked until there were starry skies (or when Foxies were dressed)
The first snowdrops are coming and lots of other bulbs are preparing to flower and we've officially now been here long enough to have to weed things which we planted (but only just!).
We had a deliberately low numbers day on site today as we are deep in final preparations for our insurance visit tomorrow (attempt #2 for the meeting to go ahead, let's hope illness stays away this time!) and preparing for lots of commissioning works to The Lodge and The Barn over the next ten days or so - exciting times ahead but lots of hard work and paperwork to get there.
The volunteers we did have worked so hard for us today - we had our Master Draper and Assistant Draper back on site (Volunteers Jean and Jan) this time finishing off The Lodge and appraising where we're at with The Barn ready for hanging in the Main Hall next week - the curtains look amazing! Clean, fresh and expertly hung to John Lewis' standards!
Volunteers Mary and Christine have spent some of the last few days, in addition to inventories for us, making neckers for our donated sft fox toys. There's a larger number still to reach us from near Bristol soon (50 or so) but the Foxie army on site is looking very dapper and ready for action in their handmade fox patterned neckers with an "I support" badge and each one tied in a friendship knot by our onsite expert, Alison (also an expert in printers, activities, bookings and much more) who honed her skills in her days wearing a Foxlease necker as a house assistant under the site's previous ownership. They are going to look great in our on site mini-shop when we're back open. They've got a large number more still to make but the ones they've completed look great.
In terms of practical jobs, no photos as they were too busy, but we had Volunteer Pete Pete (as opposed to Plumber Pete) working with Volunteer Rosie to finishing making the decking safe after the removal yesterday and removing the nails and screws so that we can reuse some of the wood on site for fencing repairs. They then moved on to repairing the special balcony at the back of Foxlease House (one of the bits of wood needed reinstating and fixing in place) and repairing some of the windows along that corridor which wouldn't close fully and so were contributing to our ongoing damp/moisture problem, with success! They also removed large quantities of dead flies residing on the window ledges in those rooms so that is all a bit more pleasant. As if that wasn't enough, they then fenced off the decking for us ahead of tomorrow's visit and also cleared the remaining wood in the former Operations Office in the House so that that is now all cleared for use following removal of the partition.
We've ended the day with more fire alarm testing (an unfortunately loud activity, but at least we know they all work!) and with a critical assessment of The Lodge's current status following yesterday's interrupted works to see what we have left to go which has resulted in lots more wishes being added to Foxie's list.
We had the office busy all day too responding to bookings, partnership enquiries and generally preparing paperwork. The prize for the most patient person in the office today was definitely won by Alison who reconfigured no less then 4 computers to make the printer work, multiple times each...(Hazel and Emma were ready to throw laptops and printers out of the window...Deborah less so...but Alison's IT expertise was very welcome!).
Wish us luck and dry weather for tomorrow to help us stay on track, Love Foxie x
