Report & photos by Martin Ludgate

This weekend was notable for a number of unusual features. Unfortunately, however, a prompt arrival of the minibus at Waterloo was not one of these features. (the driver blamed it on a large traffic jam called West London) This delayed our departure to the point where it appeared highly unlikely that we would reach Herefordshire before pub closing time. However this didn't matter, because one of the unusual features of the weekend was that we were staying in a village hall with no pub within walking distance, so there wasn't a pub for us to not arrive in time to not miss last orders at...

Another unusual feature was the reappearance after a long absence of Rick A (who has been off sick) and Matt (who was paying a flying visit from Australia). But back to the bus journey...

On leaving the A40 at Over (where?) we chose to take a scenic route across Gloucestershire and Herefordshire (Oh, all right, we took a wrong turning) but eventually arrived at Yarkhill village hall at about 11.30pm. Incidentally, we couldn't help noticing on our wanderings through the countryside that every single village we passed through (and there were plenty of them) boasted not one but AT LEAST THREE inviting-looking hostelries with real ale a-plenty, traditional open fires all ablaze, sounds of conviviality issuing forth from within etc etc. OK I exaggerate a little, but it did seem rather like that as we thundered along the country lanes, hell-bent on reaching the only pub-free village in the county. Are we really to believe that not a single one of these other villages has a village hall that we could have used instead?

Another unusual feature of this dig was that it was to be a joint weekend with WRG North West. Unfortunately nobody seems to have told WRG North West so they didn't turn up. No, that's unfair - despite most of NW finding that they couldn't make it that weekend for various reasons (we have that effect on people) Bob and Liz Dewey were at the accommodation by the time we arrived and stayed for the whole weekend, while John Hawkins (probably the most south-easterly person in WRG North West, and living proof that the north really does start at Watford) joined us for Saturday.

Over a couple of cans of beer / slices of toast / cups of tea etc, Marcus (dig organiser) explained the plans for the weekend. It appeared that yet another unusual feature of this particular dig was to be that most of us wouldn't be working on a canal at all. We would be using various machinery to build a cycleway somewhere not far away from where the towpath might have been when it was by the canal, when there was a canal for it to be beside. I think. Meanwhile another team were to be working within walking distance of the accommodation, fixing a damaged culvert under the canal.

The cycleway team arrived at the worksite at Aylesford on Saturday morning and set to work levelling the path, laying a layer of road planings on it, flattening it and trying not to knock too many high voltage power lines down with their excavators. We didn't actually knock any down at all, but one who will remain nameless managed to dig up a sign that said 'danger buried cables' and something that looked suspiciously like a buried cable (although 'buried' was something of an exaggeration - it was all of 3" underground), which put an end to work until a cable detector could be found. Meanwhile (so I am told) the culvert team discovered that 'walking distance' to their work-site was a little further than they'd realised. (In fact by that measure, perhaps there is a pub within 'walking distance' after all.) They also discovered that the work involved in fixing the culvert was a little more extensive than expected, but at least they spent the day finding out exactly how much more work it would be than we'd expected, so the group that gets to do the work know what they're in for.

We didn't go to the pub on Saturday night either (I told you it was an unusual dig) but instead stayed in the accommodation where we were fed a sumptuous repast of bangers and mash and some interesting vegetables (Thanks to Liz, helped by Marcus), washed down with some rather unusual pear wine (thanks to the caretaker). Staying with the 'unusual dig' theme, our evening was enlivened by Dippy Claire asking what the Falkirk Wheel was and being shown by Richard Cool and Matt, who used cardboard, two beer cans and a pencil to make a working model. We celebrated Marcus's 25th birthday with a 'boob cake' supplied by local H&G chap Martin. (quote from Richard: "You don't need that knife, there's usually a clip round the back that you can undo...") and the presentation of a 'Danger: noxious gases' T-shirt from Nigel. And the most unusual feature of the evening was that Tim Lewis didn't arrive just in time for dinner. In fact he didn't arrive at all - but we were joined overnight by Sal & Andy who were moving house that weekend but somehow managed to incorporate a trip to Herefordshire into the logistics of the move.



Back on site on Sunday, the team who'd been working on the culvert on Saturday joined us at Aylesford. To make up for the fact that they'd actually been working on the canal on Saturday, they were sent to work even further away from it on Sunday, clearing a section of hillside ready for a wheelchair-accessible path to be installed. Meanwhile the cycleway team had acquired a cable detector by some dubious means involving David Penny. One theory was that he'd been wandering around the county waving a live power cable around, waiting until he heard a detector somewhere go 'bleep', but it transpired that in fact he'd simply scrounged one off the first road-works team he could find. Anyway, armed with the detector we could carry on laying the cycleway, making sure that any levelling needed in the vicinity of cables was done by raising the ground rather than by excavation.

We didn't quite complete the job before the rains that had threatened to wash us out all weekend finally arrived resulting in a slightly early finish, but we didn't leave too much work for the locals to finish.