Day 22 - The day Foxie trailed all over site and Henrietta got a workout.

No alarms this morning, which was excellent news, but an exceptionally busy day for our onsite team.

Lots of office-based progress in the morning, responding to bookings enquiries, administrative applications and "claiming" ownership of various sites...watch this space for a wholly new trip advisor site page in the New Year and alongside that we had two hardworking volunteers putting Henrietta the hoover to work (you might think we mean Hetty, but you'd be wrong as Foxlease Park's Hetty is a mashup of a Hetty with a Henry hat and is affectionately now known as Henrietta to their friends - possibly Lady Henrietta in formal settings but we've not asked). 

Our on site Foxie's IT Team defeated the stubborn printer which was masquerading as a photocopier only up to now as it didn't want to connect to print anything and after much effort and negotiation, and a bit of time for it to consider its position whilst Iain went and sealed the Laundry Room sink for us, the printer graciously agreed to print things (Iain - 1; stubborn printer - 0) - fingers crossed it's still in the mood to print things tomorrow.

We've shared some before and after pictures of the vestibule/boot room/entry lobby to the side of Foxlease House which looks 1000 times better already and it's only had a first pass at floor level and a good tidy up!  We've got some mould and damp treatment still to do and some further deep cleaning but we're pleased to say the boots are now on the rack, the chairs look ready to be sat on and the outside is back outside where it belongs, rather than inside!  We've also shared an after picture of the amazing progress in one of the offices, which also gave Henrietta a work out, along with some grime-removal and elbow grease to get it looking nice and clean again as a usable space for us.

Some of our new barriers arrived courtesy of volunteer Tony, who very kindly also looked at a lock problem we were having to help us out and work out what was needed.

We spent a few hours this afternoon walking the site with our tree advisor and identifying more management that will be needed so that we can get those things in before the start of our phased opening next year.  Darragh had done a bit more damage around the edges of the site than just the big tree on Apple Trees pictured yesterday, but we have the start of a plan to resolve it and may just need to call on some of our volunteers who previously offered fencing as being in their skill set (not the kind with swords, obviously).  The really lovely thing to see, aside from the deer criss-crossing the site every so often to find a space we weren't, was how clearly you can see the trails which they have been following regularly if you look (see photo of one of them). To the untrained (or tired) eye they look a bit like lines of mud in the grass but when you look closer (after your forest expert points it out) you can see lots of little hoof prints where they have been playing follow-the-leader around the site.

More trails tomorrow, or certainly more mud, Love Foxie x