Report by Vince
Vince, Jake, Jon, Tav, Roz, Duncan, Mike, Estelle and Chris Dubery.
Lots of people this evening, the flotsam and jetsam from another flooded dig!
We decided to move from the usual Thursday evening slot because we thought there might be some event in the caves on Hallowe’en night, that said, the car park was very busy tonight.
The focus of the session had been to build a retaining wall and a raised platform at the current end of the dig. This, an effort to contain any future flooding. Due to the number of participants the plans were tweaked a little.
Chris, as tonight’s guest, was dispatched up the ladder with a spade and a supply of empty buckets, the ladder was then removed. It gets in the way. Jake and Vince set about retrieving some of the large boulders we knew were buried in the pile of spoil, somewhere. These would be required to construct the retaining wall.
Tav was clearing away the filled buckets, while nursing a sore shoulder, the buckets were passed across the pit to Estelle, then to Jon who was loading them into skip. The loaded skip was hauled away and the contents of the buckets emptied on to the spoil heap by Mike, Duncan and Roz. It was a productive session, everyone was busy. It’s not certain if anyone was really keeping an accurate tally but 66 was mentioned.
There was a bit more water than expected so the evenings tasks were made a little more arduous due to a liberal coating of slippery mud.
Anyway, the boulders were set free from their temporary grave, some proved a little more difficult than others and required a combined effort to coax them free of the muddy grip. These boulders enabled the retainer wall to be built to the perceived required height. All we need to do now is to backfill the space created and raise the platform. Hopefully, this will be achieved before anymore heavy rain comes along!
