27^thOctober 2005.

Hello, welcome to our second update!

September began with the contractors arriving on site to begin the necessary works.

All of a sudden, our little project had stepped up a gear, with safety notices, hard hats and both of us being required
to sign in whenever we attended site.

We had a big meeting on the 16^th with almost everyone involved attending. At this meeting we were hit with a few bombshells. First, the engineer didn’t turn up to the meeting, as a week earlier he had given us three days notice
that he was moving to Ireland, permanently. Second, the contractor informed us that there were traces of asbestos
in the artex that was painted on the walls in areas that were due for demolition. Crispin (the wall builder) was also
not at this meeting as he and his family had just left for a 6 week holiday in Australia. The third and final bombshell
of that meeting was from Jim (Crispin’s right hand man) who told us that the wall build could take up to 10 weeks,
not the 4 to 6 that we had previously believed. So all in all we were a bit shell shocked after that meeting.

The first thing to be done was to stabilise the roof beams and then to grit blast. Apart from covering Clydach in a plume
of dust, this worked out remarkably well.

By now, we were struggling to get designs through from the engineer, but work was slowly creeping forward and the
foundations for the mezzanine structure were put in.

The old floor was then braced and prepared for the steel work to go in.

And the holding down bolts for the steel uprights were set out.

As promised, the steel work arrived on site on Monday 24^th Oct and work quickly began with erecting the mezzanine.
We had a lot of rain over the weekend, and as you can see the river was nervously high.

The next couple of weeks will see a hive of activity as the rest of the mezzanine is built, new floors put in and the
old floor taken out.

With the old stairs removed, we now have no internal access between floors, but it was easier to plan the changing
rooms and showers this way.

Livingstone walls are now due on site on the 14^th November and aim to have most of the construction finished
by Christmas. This will leave us with just over a week (of normal working days) to paint, set routes and install
safety matting before our launch weekend of 7^th/8^th January.

Thanks again for all the support and encouragement so far, and keep checking back for updates.

Donna and Adam.

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