Impromptu Opening

Friday 9 March

Rob and Howard’s bar due to open tomorrow, so decided to get stuck in and help scrub it clean after all the building work.  Picked the toilets, as a crucial part of the operation, especially difficult as they’d been used to clean paint brushes for weeks.  So the job entailed chipping and washing paint off the sinks and walls and mirror before even starting to actually clean it.

Everyone else was cleaning or painting too: Jackie on the hoover, Dave cutting in behind the bar.  Chris and Josh Brown inspecting the works, Rob taking a quick break.

Not looking ready to open tomorrow at all

Yet by eight o’clock, just as we’d finally decided to knock off for a beer before going for something to eat (which never happened in the end), several people walked in for a sneak preview.  

 As there was beer in the newly arrived fridge, and the till was operational, beers were sold!  An unofficial pre-opening.  (Lucky no-one asked for wine or any spirits other than Howard’s tipple: Bacardi).

 

Just before midnight, a bottle of gin appeared, to keep the Bacardi company.  

              Like rabbits, once you've got two, there's no stopping them.  

                   By half past midnight, there was a shelf-full!                    

And Rob and Josh were going strong.

My remaining clear memory of the evening, after the loo cleaning was over, was that around 2am I took it into my head to see if I could still cartwheel, now I’m 50.  I can.  Three times.  Very impressed with myself, Dave said I even pointed my toes.   I expect those will have been my last ever cartwheels.  I felt the hamstring injury for about 4 days.