It was slightly windy and a little drizzly when twelve London WRGies met in Lichfield on the Friday night. The weather was obviously just practising because by 7.30 a.m. on Saturday it had perfected the art of "chucking it down horizontally". It was a very unenthusiastic bunch that made it to the Tamworth Road site by 9.00 a.m. John Horton (the local organiser) was nowhere to be seen so at 9.05 a.m. we got back in the van! A few minutes later John turned up - he'd been at Darnford dealing with the crane and lorry that had appeared early. Unfortunately much of the planned work at Tamworth Road required a lack of rain so he set us off on lock clearance and brick cleaning.

When the canal was closed someone decided to run a storm-water drainage pipe through all the locks, fill them in with gravel and demolish a couple of feet of brickwork and stone off the top of the locksides. The canal society are using some coping stones and quoin stones from another lock to restore this one . The rest of the lock wall hasn't been completed yet so the two quoin stones already in place (one above the other) are on their own - slightly resembling Stonehenge! The crane and lorry were being used to move another stone weighing about 3 tons from Darnford to Tamworth Road. By mid-morning most people were cold, wet and quite happy to sit in the van drinking coffee made with lukewarm water and watch the crane put the stone in position. Gas would have helped on the coffee front!

During the coffee break John thought of some work at Darnford that could be done in the wet, after many phone calls to WRG board members we established that Ed really was authorised on JCBs and so Adrian, Ed, Rupert and I set off. Meanwhile back at Tamworth Road a large sheet of tarpaulin had been made into a shelter across the lock, enabling the brickwork to be done.

At Darnford the four of us collected the JCB and three dumpers from the farm and trundled across the fields in a 'Wacky Races' style procession. The JCB dug out the cut and the dumpers transported the soil to the other end of site, constructing the banks of the canal at that end. It was very cold, wet and windy and dumpers don't give very much protection from the elements, so we were glad when we stopped for lunch. After trailing round Lichfield for an hour in Adrian's warm car we finally found somewhere that sells Calor gas. We were thoroughly warmed up when we got back to Tamworth Road for food and were keen to get back to work because it really was quite good fun.

The others, however, had had enough, packed up and headed for the showers. This was a good move because suddenly the sun came out and there were blue skies!

We had a productive afternoon in the mud and knocked off at about 5.30 p.m. There was time for a shower and a swift half before tea - pork casserole with the usual London WRG garlic bread, followed by Rupert's special surprise: trifle with lashings of sherry. Thanks to Alison and Rupert for a splendid meal. We had a pleasant evening in two pubs and guess what? We got wet on the way home as well!

With an extra hours sleep and the eggs refusing to cook we didn't make it on site until gone ten; however, the weather had greatly improved and so we were able to do some constructive work. The four of us carried on at Darnford until lunchtime whilst the others carried on with the lock clearance and reparation of the lock walls. After lunch we all worked together at Tamworth Road and after tea break we all watched Rhys do the work!

Despite the weather we had a fun weekend: we shifted lots of mud at Darnford, a second coper was put in place at Tamworth Road, the lock is nearly empty, we mended a few big holes in the brickwork (as well as making some more), and we installed scaffolding in the lock tail so that rebuilding work can begin.

Thanks to Rupert and Alison for organising and cooking and Lesley and Ed for doing breakfast on the Sunday, and finally John and Jan for the local organisation and the cakes.