The December of 2021

Posted on Sun December 19, 2021.

Revelling in The Karoo Art Hotel renovation . Pic by Mickey Menz

Much to reflect on as we take a breather and open the bar as a pop up and the downstairs rooms as a temporary exhibition space for the artists of Barrydale . Some images to sum it all up.

'Christmas hats'; the party for the renovation team. Red for the house team, blue for the builders, green for the electricians and yellow for the plumbers. There were over 50 of us.

"Thanks for your wonderful work". Everyone got a jacket with our new logo

Sue and the house team who'd be part of the 'pop up bar' project (Toby, Audrey's the Lab in the foreground)

Because we are still under construction we're all wearing hard hats. Thankfully Morgan and our engineer came through with the I beams to shore up the bedroom floors above reception so these hard hats props only 🤞.

Still undecorated the reception was turned into an exhibition space for local artists to show some work and promote their studios for BAM - the Barrydale Art Meander . That's the bakery at the far end.

We've said it's our mission to give the village its hotel back and we've had a wonderful response thus far.

To help all those who are popping in to check the progress we have these banners to bridge the gap between a cleary 'still in progress' situation and what will be. The most important one of them all ? "Welcome home Barrydale".

Meanwhile all around us Barrydale was really happening ; The Christmas tree was lit....the annual parade happened and the Analogue (wet plate) photography exhibition ranThis is the look of the gorgeous old fashioned analogue / wet plate photographic process. Heaven knows why more fashion brands don't use it. This picture by Graham Abbott who also did all the work for our website. Mickey Menz shot the christmas party images on this blog.