Having christened 2006 with a freezing foray into Wales, LWRG ventured a little less far in February, with a visit to Seven Locks (not far from Dauntsey), one of the major work sites for the Wilts & Berks at the moment. This is part of Racheal Banyard’s patch and she was to be putting us to good use with lock wall brickwork, groundwork including backfill behind newly-built lock walls and an awful lot of lifting-and-shifting.

The leader for this weekend was to have been Andy (never trust anyone called) Richardson, and up until Saturday evening, it was. He then left us, having a much better offer for Sunday, namely a box at a rugby match.

I arrived a bit early on Friday evening having been working in Sussex (cracking drive up from Andover to Lyneham, via minor roads, between snow-covered downs!) so I popped in to see Racheal and Di at Dauntsey, where I had a cup of coffee, watched the news and was violently adored by Mina (sorry for spelling your name wrong in the last report I wrote, Mina).

We then returned to Lyneham (after, bizarrely, a landline telephone conversation with Welsh Phil) to await the Bearer of the Hall Keys with Nigel and Chris, who had materialised meantime. Later, Nigel, Chris and I adjourned to the White Hart and to our delight found a choice of real ale (there was real cider too, for those, that, er, drink the stuff and don’t have to spend the next two days talking to God on the Great White Pay-As-You-Go) and an amazingly seventies interior with a real fire burning in an inset-stove affair in the stone chimney. The rest of the London WRGies arrived in RFB and piled in too. Into the pub, not the stove. Richard piled into the real cider and found that next time, he’d have a Strongbow, please.

On Saturday morning, I forgot to get up because I had some new earplugs in and had no idea the rest of ‘em were up-and-at-it. I watched everyone else scoff brekky (I’m not a breakfast person, so it isn’t a big deal with me) whilst clambering into my clothes and preparing for battle with lip balm and handcream (“ah, modern men!” I hear you sigh, “in my day,” etc etc).

As ever, the “anything involving the W&B involves problematical site access” rule applied, and the complete lockful of (brand new!) scaffolding which awaited us upon arrival at site had to be moved, by hand, from the road end of the site (Lock 2) to where it would be stored, a small, fenced-in area of the field to the offside of Lock 4, an earlier KESCRG-and-locals creation. All this was via an uneven towpath, a bund over the canal’s course and into a hoof-rutted field half-swamped with water and, er, animal bi-products. Frank fell over in his riggers so many times he was ordered off the area by Andy for his own safety (his cleanliness already having been compromised). I tell you what, I’ve never been so completely and utterly knackered at the end of a week-long Canal Camp. Unfortunately, it was 11:00am and the SATURDAY of a weekend DIG. And there was more to come.

Mixing vast quantities of concrete with an enormous mixer (ours was Schweppes, Jumbo being employed on similar duties the other side) was next. Much lifting and the mix called for entire bags of cement at once and 25 blokeish or 50 girlie shovelfuls of agg. Cue WRG NW regulars’ cries of “Southern Jessie!” but my shovelfuls were not much more blokey than Rowena’s girly ones, so we did 50s! This was naturally followed by failing to get the wheelbarrows of concrete up the precarious access ramps, succeeding somehow, shifting the vibe generating machine onto other precarious places in order to walk up and down the wall-tops (1 block wide) and vibrate the backfill and much general stretching of poor, abused backbones back into posture-correct positions.

I learned how to angle the vibrator head for maximum effectiveness (‘Teacher’ Tim Lewis at maximum effectiveness, there) and how you were really supposed to stop Schweppes (like, not the decompression levers, Mk2!) I also learned that how worn out I felt at 11 was nothing to how I felt mid-afternoon, and there was still more scaff to shift.

I must say how utterly welcome the aroma of cooking was to my chapped nostrils upon our return to the hall. And how welcome it was to find boot scrapers on either side of the main door; these are great for taking the boots off without getting even dirtier!

Liz Wilson, nursing a bad ankle* that would have put her out of contention on site, chose instead to take after Jenny Mum Wilson and cook up a storm for us. Dinner was slow-cooked chicken in creamy sauce, with sticky rice, and moy hoy did it fill a gap! For some reason, I’ve forgotten what was for pudding, so perhaps Editor Ed will fill that in for me!

Off to the White Hart without much further ado. Richard decided that Strongbow would continue to be his cidre-de-choix and the rest of us made merry with the Pride and 6X. Well, not Chris, obviously.

The following day again featured dry but cold and breezy weather and again featured scaff-shifting, backfill and brickwork. The leader for Sunday was yer actual Tim Lewis, but by early afternoon, enough was enough for his back, and he headed for an early bath. From then on, I’m not sure who was in charge but Ed kept a watching brief on everything.

The brickwork of Martin, Nigel and David, supported by Chris soldiering away on yet another ancient mixer, was continued by locals just as we were leaving site, so Lock 3 certainly saw some headway and by the time you read this the Easter Canal Camp will probably have seen it finished. Lock 4 is another story, but thanks to this dig, all the (new!) scaffolding is in the right place for when the demolition is done and the rebuild starts.

Thanks to Rachel and Luke for all their help, to Lyneham village hall’s committee for refurbishing the place to a high level of cosiness, Liz for scrummy dindins and sarnies galore and also to Lesley, as without the loan of her padded jacket to put on my shoulders, I could not have continued carrying that flippin’ scaffolding!

Mk2 8-)

This can be expressed mathematically as = beer festival + imminent last train home + shiny-floored railway station.