It has been a busy day in the new visitor room. I am under a little time pressure as the first visitors to the new room are coming to the farm this Friday. Today I had the help of dad and Veronica armed with their drills. Although first thing this morning the temperature wasn’t too bad, the wind picked up and I did hear a few mutterings about cold hands as we headed towards lunchtime.

This mornings ‘to-do-list’ was really quite long and we managed about half of it, which I am pleased about. We started the morning with the remaining soap dispensers and paper towel holders being put into place. In terms of Health and Safety of the group visits, clean hands is probably my biggest concern. There is a form of ecoli which may or may not be present in the animal faeces on the farm. I assume that it is and have a very strict hand washing policy. All visitors must wash their hands in warm, flowing water and soap for two minutes and then dry their hands with a paper towel. Time and time again, visitors come to the farm armed with hand gel. Hand gel is only effective if the gel can get to the germs. The physical act of hand washing and then drying helps to remove the dirt. The recommended time for washing hands is two minutes, which for many, is a long time. I have decided to put interesting pictures on the wall behind the handwashing taps, in the hope it will keep visitors washing their hands for a bit longer. My last handwashing system had only four washing stations and was a bit of a bun fight, the new visitor room has eight stations and hopefully a better flow of people. Time will tell!

Veronica and dad also put locks on the toilet doors as shown in the photo and a couple of smoke alarms. Although the visitor room is a log cabin, I have been assured that the densely packed wood won’t burst into flames but rather smoulder like a burning telephone directory. The greater part of the day was spent putting up new coat hooks for visitors to hang up their coats, bags and store their wellies. As this building is my second building I hope I have learnt from my previous mistakes. This time I have chosen large strong double hooks and positioned them so a five year old can hang his own coat up, rather than relying on the class teacher. I have also put some hooks high up for the staff members to hang their things, far out of the way of the childens’ muddy coats and boots.

Tomorrow is another day. Before Friday we still need to hang up the first aid box, fix the hose pipe, build shoe changing benches and secure my ‘seasonal tree’…..