The Forresters was as usual the meeting place for London WRG on the Friday evening and Kirdford Village Hall the accommodation. The pub had no intention of throwing us out so we left of our own accord after midnight to be struck by disaster! NO BREAD! and therefore no toast. This vital item had not been bought at all due to a misunderstanding between the organiser and the van driver over the phrase "We've got the basics for breakfast." The general upset led to Rhys generously producing a couple of bottles of wine and some beer to help the coffee down, but this resulted in much animated conversation until the move to bag at 2am.

Saturday got quite old before life returned to the contents of the bags. (In fact John Gerrard arrived before breakfast!) But meanwhile the organiser had not been idle on the bread front and had been busy failing at the village shop. Yesterday's sliced bread was not for sale having been reserved by some good burgers of Kirdford who obviously preferred to store it in the shop. (Small larders?) A request for a loaf of the newly delivered "real" bread revealed that most of it was also already reserved. Luckily sliced bread was due be delivered so 3 loaves were ordered, and earnest supplication (i.e. begging) and a vivid picture of the consequences of returning empty handed resulted in a real loaf for breakfast. Due to subsequent poor communication, misunderstandings and individual enthusiasms a further 9 loaves appeared during the day. However this had the advantage of producing garlic bread at dinner and eggy bread at Sunday breakfast.

The work on Saturday was around Malham Lock. One side of the lock needed landscaping and bricks and rocks removed, some of the lock stones needed re-pointing and posts concreted in and a gate hung above the lock steps. Work was carried out on all projects at the same time, but not necessarily by the same people.

During the working periods it was discovered that Rhys and Martin could be related (due to a forebear Ludgate having a bike? or a boat? between Singleton and High Wycombe), that blokes could talk on for AGES about "plant" which led to speculation as to whether that was the probable reason that they didn't mind hoovering. Dan's domesticity was touched upon (yes, he can iron) and Marcus mysteriously and suddenly fell into the canal, but only wetting his trousers. This, interestingly, resulted in his sneaking up and tipping a bucket of water completely over Rhys who declared war and subsequently tipped the by then ucky contents of a welly over Marcus' head (Luckily in a hard hat at the time but looking up from the lock chamber).

But, dear readers, it wasn't all fun, we sweated blood over sod and clod, concrete and mortar to finish the work, revived only by tea and lunch (Lots of sandwiches!) and observed by two horses waiting for apple cores. It was noted that one of these beasts snorted with derision every time the initials 'JP' were mentioned. One of the occasions was speculation on whether Marcus was his love-child. Marcus worked out that he (JP, not Marcus, though probably he too) did not have a beard at the time and therefore M's mother might not have been completely put off.

A tea-time discussion on various types of milk and their bugs led this reporter to observe that she had 'had some hot goats'- collapse of navvies assembled and one hot flush! (I was told I had to include this incident, I'm not usually into self-flagellation).

After Saturday night's blow out meal caused not only by garlic bread, but also the inability of certain shoppers to resist a bargain in the guise of a huge bag of mince, (Cook it all - so I did), consumption in the Forresters was slow and little toast subsequently consumed.

Sunday's first disaster was when we arrived on site and the van window fell in when the door was slammed. A temporary repair was effected by Rhys and Tim using an assortment of cutlery and a Swiss army knife. I write "temporary" because of the interesting loop in the rubber surround that you can see through. (No-one could call it a seal).

Sunday also brought out the shorts and a split group, some working at Malham and some at Rowner concreting piles by hand (sounds revolting) after unfortunately disabling the genny which ran the mixer. Even Rhys (Mr Fixit Extraordinaire) couldn't get it going again.

The afternoon was spent getting and spreading dumper-loads of rubble on the other side of the lock, until tired but happy and stuffed full of sarnies we went back to the hall in the dodgy van leaving behind the busted generator. Still, what's that between friends?

PS. When are we due to go back? Bags I don't organise that dig too!