Day 220 - May 7. Glass sliding doors (16.5 metres of them) are on a truck on the high seas heading for the barn!

There's an air of anxious excitement on site today. The glass sliding doors for the south elevation are finally on their way and are due on site at 10am today!  As luck would have it, Highway Maintenance decide today would be a perfect day to close the lane, dig up and repair the massive pot holes. When would they hit the entrance to the barn? Which end of the lane would they start? Will the Polish truck driver understand 'Road Closed' but passable?! Would BarnGirl's enormous panes of glass survive the thumping and bumping along the 'uneven surface'?

BarnGirl takes a call at 8am from Andrew, the UK installation manager, who indicates he's minutes away. Phew, they're early, or so BarnGirl thinks. Alas, Andrew is one part of the installation team, the rest are on their way from Poland, including the owner of the factory.

10 o'clock comes and goes. Then a dusty grey car, with Polish plates, arrives on site. Two slim chaps emerge from the car to stretch their legs, after a 10 hour drive from Poland. They are the advance party of experienced installers. Shamefully, BarnGirl and the BarnBoys extent of Polish is nil; the installers' English is 'hello' and 'thank you'. There seems to be a lot of nodding and overly loud 'you...like....cup of tea or da coffee?'.

A few phone calls later......'They're held up and will be here at 11.30am'. Ok. The road repair guys are still far enough away.  12.30pm disappears. So does 1.30 and 2.30. Eek, the road drills are getting closer!
Meanwhile, Boss Jon does a few last minute rehearsal manoeuvres in the telehandler.  Just to remind you, Jon, you volunteered to fork lift 16.5 metres of glass, oak frames and track from the north elevation to the south!

At 3.30pm BarnGirl spots a large blue lorry, wobbling from side to side, trying to avoid the freshly trimmed pot holes ready for filling. We're on....the installation can begin.

Hello Boys - The Installation Team

'Unboxing'

Boss Jon picking up the tracks

Add caption

Tracks brought safely to South Elev

Scooping up 5 giant panes of glass

Here comes the glass!

Glass panes on the rack

BarnGirl has every confidence in you, Boss Jon

Glass panes carefully lowered to South Elev

Easy does it.....Oak frames land safely

It's a dog's life! Tip takes it easy

Looking good

So, with everything on site, Mr Factory Owner, Macin, and his handpicked team of installers set to work. It's going to be a very long day; the first of three.  Well done, all involved in the 'unboxing'. Looking forward to progress tomorrow.

Onwards to Day 2 of the installation....
Love
BarnGirl
xx