The hailstones are hammering into the roof of the visitor centre and I think the weather has discouraged the visitors - I'm here having lunch on my own.

When it was dry earlier this morning I helped Gavin shift some empty casks ready for filling tomorrow. There's no chance I would try to shift the full ones. Gavin's rightly concerned that I would lose several fingers and I'm not sure the borrowed steel- toe-capped boots would offer much help if a 250litre barrel landed on my foot.

The warehouse reminds me of one of those little plastic puzzles where you have to keep moving the pieces around in order to make a picture, but there's only one gap.

The warehouse is completely full, so to access a particular cask requires a whole lot to be taken out, moved around, slotted into little nooks and crannies, extracting the one you want, before stacking it all back again. In the meantime you might need to move a pallet of empty bottles past all the casks you've just shifted and you find there's no space. It's mad, but it's all part of the philosophy (right or wrong) to maintain the authentic process, the complete end-to-end production at 'cottage industry level', rather than go for large scale automated 'manufacture'.

I managed to stay awake longer last night, which gave me the opportunity to have the kind of chat with people that can only happen if you're sitting in a bar on your own. It's a completely different dynamic, and actually rather enjoyable.

Do I really need the return ticket for the ferry on Saturday...?


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