The first dig after the National is usually a big one, this years did not disappoint. The work for the weekend was to continue the brick work on the new lock at Loxwood (opposite the Onslow Arms pub) that a series of three canal camps had started over the summer, a novelty for a London WRG brick laying job – the walls were straight, the bricks new and we didn’t have to key it into the old structure - luxury! The accommodation was first rate as well – Plaistow village hall boasts showers! Friday night saw Suzie and I braving the weather and traffic around Reading to pick up Dippy Claire from the station before heading on to the accom, on arrival it was obvious that parking was going to be tight over the weekend. On to the pub where Nigel and his son Chris were waiting to regale us with tales of roller coasters in America, little did we know that this would be the only visit…

Saturday morning and after Jenny Wilson had done her usual bang-up job with breakfast we headed to site. David Miller (the organiser for the weekend) soon assigned pieces of wall to bricklayers (many jokes about lego or duplo walls depending whether they were laying stones/concrete blocks or bricks), Moose and Maria had started the industrial mortar production process and I had set my brick cutting shop up. By lunch the lock was going up quickly, a comment heard from the duplo team was “it’s really easy to build walls with these big stones”. Jobs for the afternoon included more bricklaying (there’s a surprise!), cable duct laying and building a shed for storing cement in, and yes it really does take 5 WRGies to put up a shed. James Butler appeared after work in his new Range Rover, taking the on site Land Rover collection to three (or four when the locals turned up) and there was much anoraking about off roading and suspension.

The evening, after a top beef stew courtesy of Jenny, the London WRG half-AGM was held and as soon as it was over we attempted to head back to the pub – unfortunately it was closed! There seemed to be a party in progress in the village and we can only assume that everyone was there. With enough supplies laid in at the accom we decided to stay there – making it two London WRG digs in a row that we haven’t made the pub!

Sunday, more of the same – breakfast followed by brick laying. Martin headed off in the van to the WRG committee meeting with the new LWRG tirfor (Thanks to Nigel “Site 1” and his wife for donating it at the end-of-National port session) so that Bungle can get it tested - hopefully we will get it back soon with our toaster! On site and a small team started to fill the voids in the block shuttering wall with concrete while everyone else carried on brick laying. Suzie got some more Stihl saw practice while carving bricks for Lesley’s curved wall and James got to play with a vibrator.

By 4.30pm everyone headed back to the accom and started to wend there way home. Many thanks to David for organising a great weekend, see people on the next one!

Ed Walker