| On arrival, we were somewhat startled to see a large ash tree that had fallen, very neatly, along the Cut.
The first thing to do, in these situations, is to designate one chap - in this case, Bob, nattily dressed in Orange - to grab a small branch and pull...  ... then you hold a bowsaw and look at it for a while.... 
"One Man And His Bowsaw"
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| Luckily it turned out to have been deliberately pushed over by machine, at an earlier workparty. Our job today, should we choose to accept it, was to dispose of the corpse. So, we took the essential equipment down to the Wharf, making full use of our latest-technology wheeled load-carrying transportation module. That'll be the wheelbarrow, then.
And then we got to work with bowsaws, slashers, a machete (Jim) and a chainsaw (Roy). 
"It's like a jungle sometimes".
As you can see above and below, James and Vic working hard to clear the branches away. Note the pile of reclaimed stone on the wharf wall: we will be re-using these later on, to rebuild the broken wall sections which were damaged by the trees growing through them.  James, in skin-tight catsuit, adds to the pile of brushwood.  Come on Jim! You can carry bigger ones than that!  |
At last, the great mass of branches was neatly sundered and piled, and Roy moved on to disposing of the trunk:
Meanwhile, what's Jim getting up to? 
"What ya'doing, Jim?" |
Oh-oh, it's dumper time again, gas masks on, everyone! This time, we decide that James should have a turn at starting it: Jim starts fiddling with the kerthangham shaft (I believe that is the technical term) while I round up Graham and Vic, as I know from experience that it won't start without a minimum of three blokes stood around watching:
"Come on James, swing it!"
"First reserve: 'Ready!'. Second reserve: 'Ready!'. Third reserve: 'Ready!' "
And hooray, off it goes in the traditional big puff of smoke. Jim will strangle me for mentioning that he immediately stalled it, making James swing it again... but James will strangle me if I don't mention it.... oh the perils of being a Reporter on the Cut. |
Finally, we had to load the dumper with all the wood that we had just laboriously chopped up, so that it could be moved up the track out of the way.
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By the time I see the Wharf again, the re-building work should be well under way, as part of the week-long "summer camp" involving WRG, the Waterways Recovery Group, who are a sort of mobile hit-squad for major building tasks. We look forward to welcoming them to the Wharf, and hope that the weather is kind to us all! |