The one with the official visits

Get up! Get up! Get up! I keep shouting in my head while all the others are still sleeping in their beds. I always wake up early in Cwm Pennant. Partially because I enjoy drinking my coffee in piece but mainly because I have to write this very blog and the morning is my only time of the day I am completely unable to be winy or bitchy, or so I think. The 2nd of August was a day reserved for the official visit of Harry Huddard- a direct descendant of the Huddard family, who used to own the Brynkir estate in the 19th century. It's a big fuss in the training room- tidying up, tidying ourselves up and receiving our daily tasks from Mark. I had to plan the probable staircase structure Kate and I had been surveying earlier. Jenna kept digging up her trench and reaching new layers in the stratigraphy of the interior of the Upper House. Alex and Stephen, by now skilled in hand surveying and planning, had to begin transferring skills to other people from the group. Lily was made chief of photography- and had to go around with Mark and our guest, making sure this event won't be forgotten. After the first article on the Plas Brinkir prject in a Welsh Newspaper a few people came to the hostel, seeking to share memories of forebears who lived and worked in the estate. And while everything is happening so fast, people are coming and going, I was sat in the Training room and kept on planning and recording everything I have done so far. Not so glamorous, is it. But you are wrong! The day became even more glamorous when in the early afternoon, just after Harry Huddard left, Elizabeth Williams-Ellis and Michael Tree came. As far as I am concerned these names didn't mean a thing to me when I first came here. And there I was, being on my best behavior. The whole group had a talk by Michael Tree before dinner, which turned out to be not so brief. However we did get a new perspective on how and why old country houses end up in the condition, in which the Upper and Lower Houses are. Sometimes I feel like time stops around here and the days are 72 hours long. But I don't really mind the long days because at the end of the day I count every minute as meaningful.