No smoke and some ire

Work
"So, how do you think the no smoking ban will affect you?" asked Andrew from Border Events magazine last week. He's not alone - almost everyone calls it that. I've tried to point out that if it was actually a "no smoking ban" then I'd have to take up smoking, but people just look at me oddly.

Renovations
Work has started - Yay! I've taken some "before" pics of the old kitchen and will pop up and take some "during" ones in a moment. The room's been stripped out and we've uncovered an old fireplace just to the right of the dumbwaiter. The old kitchen and the corridor next to it used to be a single room; the cornice extends through the partition wall which is little more than a wooden partition. We're not sure when the division took place, but the dumbwaiter and shelving (now gone) were probably installed at the same time.

Since it's difficult to separate the running of the place from the renovations I have abandoned the "reviving the eagle" blog - all future posts will appear here.