Bring on the pizza!

Tracey rowing with pizza paddles

Sorry for the delayed write up - had to fit in a quick trip to Africa!....
But the weekend before we left, Tracey and I managed to complete Cassius and were able to provide Flee with his first woodland pizza, as requested all those months ago.
Armed with not one, but two pizza paddles, made in two different materials by two different people, we set off for the wood, laden with pizza bases (yes, I know, pre-bought, but we all have to start somewhere) and a huge selection of toppings (think I might have overdone it a bit!).

The make-your-own selection platter

After a few hours firing, Cassius' thermometer was swinging between 170 and 200 and so we shoved in a cheap and cheerful, cheese and tomato mini to test him out with....We were expecting a black bottom, and possibly soot on top as the smoke level is quite low, but the sacrificial pizza looked so good we ate it! Cassius was roaring and so were we. The sense of achievement was immense; digging clay from the pond and turning it into something usable and "free" was fantastic. We now had the means to make roasties and bread, cakes and casseroles. So excited. But today's task was pizza for eight people. It was dark by the time the gang were all assembled, but with our solar lighting in the Yardarm it wasn't long before Cassius was in full swing and pizza after perfect pizza came out. The wooden paddle was great for getting them in and the metal one made light work of retrieving them - we didn't lose a single slice.

the first sacrificial mini

Everyone knows you can't have pizza without a movie, so we pegged out a pillow case over the woodpile to make a movie screen and all sat round the fire to watch "The making of Cassius" sent from a handheld projector mounted on a tripod - magic.
The journey has been longer than anticipated, and harder work than we could ever have imagined, but Cassius is a fully functioning thing of beauty and the aches and pains are now long forgotten.
We laughed, we worried, then we laughed some more. A massive thank you to everyone who made it possible, you're amazing.

PS: Flee, you can now have your pond back. We are well and truly done with clay.