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September 2008 was the month that our luck with the
weather ran out but, despite this, progress was good and
a significant milestone reached. Friday was, in weather
forecast parlance, a day with continuous heavy rain.
However because of Mike’s forward planning a lot of
useful work was accomplished. We arrived to find an
enormous pile of crushed stone (16 tonnes in fact)
awaiting transport to the section of completed towpath.
Using two dumpers, wheelbarrows and 22 volunteers the
pile of stone disappeared by lunchtime. Although those
spreading the stone were partially sheltered from the
elements by the large hedge those on the dumpers and
barrows were not so lucky. The photograph of some of
the 150 metres of neatly surfaced towpath shows that the
soaking was worth it! Alas those volunteers looking
forward to an early trip to the pub were disappointed.
The afternoon was devoted to placing large quantities of
limecrete at various places on the batter wall and
erecting profiles. Isn’t there a saying about idle
hands..?
The
improving weather on Saturday and Sunday, and
attendances of 22 and 20 on the respective days,
permitted building work on both the vertical wall at
Redwith Bridge and the batter wall. As expected WRG had
constructed two bays of the Redwith Wharf retaining wall
during their August Work Camp. Our work consisted of
filling one of these bays with concrete, trimming the
blockwork and continuing the stonework facing. By the
end of work on Sunday 8 metres of wall had been finished
and another 18 metres started.
The
headline news from Sunday is that construction of the 30
metres of batter wall over the weekend took us to the
halfway point, some 207metres from Redwith. This was not
achieved without a struggle since the line and level of
the piling at this point is probably the worst on the
whole length. Progress on the lower courses of the wall
building is correspondingly slow because three
operations are required as opposed to one elsewhere.
However, as the photograph shows, we got there!
We had
many visitors from the Maesbury Boat Rally over the
weekend – sadly only on foot. Much encouragement was
received from the visitors together with exhortations to
finish and re-water the length before the next Maesbury
Rally. We will try! |
