First
dig of the year and the job of organising it fell to me. The weekend started
well, at least after we finally managed to get some directions to the
accommodation as strangely my directions of look for the large red arrow
floating above it seemed to provide some entertainment!
Amazingly van and occupants made it to the pub by 10:30 to join those
already present. Drinking continued late into the evening or should I say
early morning aided by the new licensing hours.
Sat morning out on site work started in earnest, the fencing crew fencing,
the slash and burn team slashing and burning, the excavator and dumper
drivers excavating and dumping and the slipway team marking and cutting the
finishing stones for the slipway.
As tea break in the Canal Centre arrived, un-typically for Wales the sun
came out and we were bathed in some glorious sunshine that continued for the
rest of the weekend! (See I even managed to order the weather!)
After tea break work continued much as before however I got the task of
donning the rather attractive waders so we could start laying the finishing
stones on the slip way.
Post
lunch –also held in the canal centre, the fencing crew completed an amazing
perfectly straight fence so moved onto fixing and installing a bench.
As it started getting dark and most of site was packing up the speed
pointing championship started! The challenge being to get all of the
finishing stones pointed in before we left or it was so dark we couldn’t see
any longer. It seems luck was on our side as we completed most of it,
probably due to getting everyone to lend a hand.
Back at the accommodation and on to dinner. The evening’s delights were
Chilli and Garlic Bread. However Martin got slightly carried away with the
amount of chilli powder (or he was making up for not getting to eat it
normally!) so the resulting dinner was a little on the warm side. To put it
into context our garlic bread can usually be tasted through everything,
however this evening we might as well have not bothered with the garlic!
However it did work well to cool your mouth a little!
Vast amounts of rice and water later we headed for the pub and the usual
beverages.
Sunday
on site involved the finishing off of the jobs we had started on Sat and
moving another fence.
This completed we headed for home.
Thanks to all for their hard work over the weekend, it was also a pleasure
to see Matt out with us again if only temporarily. As he put it "only you
lot appreciate why someone would travel 12000km to build a fence, fix a
bench and point stonework in the dark” !
See you all new time
Sal Nutt