A foot or a yard?

Actually, great things are a foot! The past few days has seen a massive amount of activity. The floor has cured and allowed us to get the scissor lift in to start on the ceilings. All the wood for the construction of the said ceilings arrived on the Monday together with the plastic cladding for the walls and of course the ceiling. In fact, everything seems to be revolving around the ceiling. We have had some delays. We await the attentions of the electrician and cannot finish the bloody ceiling until he has placed his electric string.

Some words of thanks must be said. We have received physical help from many friends this week. Things would have been daunting and trying without their help. They are, amongst others: Rob, Little Stewart, Mark, Jess, Ben, Tom, Phil, and also Andrew and Katherine for their continued support and assistance. In addition to this there are also the people that just lend their support, not only over the last six months but since we first started to brew over thirteen years ago. We are blessed with friends.....

Bored or Board?

Yesterday was marked by the untimely arrival of the special board for the ceiling. Untimely because it wasn't supposed to arrive until Monday. The day was also marked by the splitting of a hydraulic hose on the forklift which meant that unloading two and a half tonnes of board was a bit of a problem. What was also a problem was the fact that neither Ray or myself was there, as of course, the board wasn't supposed to be delivered until Monday. Luckily poor long suffering Andrew, who with Katherine runs the place, managed to borrow a forklift from the people down the road and then unloaded it for us and put it into the malt store. Thank you Andrew.

We are both looking forward to Monday when work can truely begin in ernest (whoever he is) as the very blue floor will have totally cured by then and we can trundle around on it on our hired scissor lift, putting up ceilings. What fun!

What a boiler!

Today we not only received the final fermentation vessel but more importantly the massive and hugely expensive oil fired steam generating boiler. It comes in a sort of chunky kit form with bolt on bits like water softener, blowdown pit and header tank. Interestingly it comes in a beautiful shade of blue which contrasts nicely with the very blue floor. Pure coincidence of course!

Blue?

Todays task was putting down the top coat on the floor. Now you know when you choose a colour for your living room, kitchen, bedroom etc. and it all looks wonderful on the colour chart and then you get home, open up the tins of paint and.. Eurgh.. It's a very different colour to the pleasant shade you expected. Well magnify that wall you wanted to paint into a floor that covers 3900 sq ft and it's a bit of a shocker. We really are talking very blue indeed. In fact, so blue that I can't think of a suitable word to describe it. The onsite carpenter has already suggested painting murals depicting mermaids and has asked his helper if he is any good at drawing seaweed. If we have space we could operate a large wet fish shop on the side.

Other news is from Phil the chap who is fabricating our vessels. The chap who delivers for him has suffered a heart attack so our best wishes for a speedy recovery go out to him. Phil will now be delivering himself and another fermentation vessel arrives tomorrow.