Day 83 - When all attention was on Barn Drive (or when Foxie met the mud monster).

Our volunteers today braved the chilly weather to tackle the borders in front of the Barn and some serious levelling in front of The Barn on Barn Drive.  Volunteers Sue and Hilary made fantastic progress on cutting back and clearing the border and laying some compost to feed the plants there and to give them the best chance of thriving.

Paul and Volunteer Ian made fantastic progress in investigating the drainage issues at the bottom of Barn Drive (water, water everywhere) and expert use of the tractor to move some of the shingle and scalpings to fill holes and displace the water included a brief spot of modern art on the Basketball Court by Paul who produced a shingle wave which The Tate Modern would be proud to exhibit!  The drainage investigations and resolutions included significant mud clearance, which led Foxie to meet what we can only describe as a mud monster living beneath Barn Drive, or a Foxie on a scuba/mud adventurer, as one of the other puddles started producing bubbles of its own...the mud monster didn't surface, save for the communicative bubbles (see video), but in any case as it's at Foxlease Park we know the mud monster will be the helpful kind and we'll see if we can persuade it to move on or at least allow Barn Drive to stay puddle free following the work today.

Action in The Barn itself too, with ladder assistance from Ian, our expert drapers, Volunteers Jean and Jan (Jan must have moved up from Apprentice by now Jean?) hung the curtains in the Main Hall and they'll be returning for some further adjustment but the curtains moving back in has started to give us the exciting feeling that a building is nearly there and this is no exception!  We'll be ready for our first day visitors this weekend, with the small number of replacement panes needed for the front doors of The Barn being collected on Wednesday, ready for fitting later this week.

We had Volunteer Plumber Pete back to fix a small leak in The Lodge for us - some of the plumbing is protesting across the site from lack of use for a while - and as that turned out to be a quick fix, he moved on quickly to reinstating pipework in the huts on Oaks and North Meadows.

We also had some activity at the front of Foxlease House, removing all the old adhesive and staining from the main signage with some Brillo Pad (other scourers are available) action and the application of some of the new letters from the Amazon Mountain Range (Mt. Fix It, specifically).  They aren't exactly the same as the existing letters as that was tricky to achieve but the sign is on its way to looking guest-ready until we're in a place to afford replacements.  More to do with touching up some of the letters, but it's nice to see the new name in place.

More Barn Drive and Barn action tomorrow (T-minus 4 days - eek!), Love Foxie x