Cleaning the floor tiles at Barley Hall: 3

Another day on the tiles! At various points in the day, there were six people, plus myself working on the floor: Kim, Alex, Maria and her husband, Sally and Peter. This time we were concentrating on cleaning the tiles behind the settles, and those on the dias. The settles effectively created two corridors to clean down. I was on one of them, and Kim and Peter were on the other at different times. A puzzling feature was chewing gum. Normally these 'corridors' are covered by the settles, which have been pulled out for cleaning purposes. However, there was a fair amount of dirt behind them, but how on earth did the chewing gum get there? Not surpringly, there is talk of ensuring that school parties have disposed of their chewing gum before they enter the Hall ...

The dias had its own particular problems. Namely the table could not be moved, as it's too heavy. So the valiant tile-cleaners (Alex, Sally, Maria and her husband) had to work with their heads under the table. We are using halogen lights anyway, but those working on the dias particularly needed them. They were also in peril of banging their heads.

Tomorrow, one of the settle 'corridors' just needs buffing up, and then the settle can be moved back. This will reveal some more tiles to be cleaned in the centre of the floor, and again there will be the table problem for part of it. The other settle 'corridor' needs finishing, drying and then that part buffing, and we can then get to the next section. The floor in front of the dias will need to be done, but not before the tiles in front of the settles have been done, other wise we will be walking over the person cleaning it, and probably still damp tiles. Still outstanding is the tile hearth, which is not glazed, but certainly needs a clean. I think it's a toothbrush or nailbrush job.

We've cleaned perhaps a half to two thirds of the Hall floor so far.

Cleaning hours clocked up today: 13.30 hours (total of person hours).

Overall total so far: 22.30