Wednesday 12th February 2014 - Platform 2B Brickwork Completed!!

Despite a dreadfully wet and windy day, 11 volunteers were on site, the bricklayers of which managed to complete the bricklaying on Platform 2B - what an achievement, the end of a 60m section of wall which looks simply tremendous. It remains for the coping slabs to be placed before it can be back-filled and finished.
 I had to go off site with some of my chums to conduct a Health and Safety Progress Meeting, and Jo has kindly put a report together on the site action today:-

Hi Bill,

11 people on site, which is quite good, considering the very poor forecast.

Roger, Peter Q, Peter H and Keith finished off platform 2 ! After lunch, it was noted that the high wind had started to turn around the shelter, leading to some interesting moments as 4 volunteers struggled with the heavy construction and what the BBC called a ‘severe gale’. 

Eventually, we wriggled it round to 1B where we managed to secure it down.

The end in their sights!

After that, we tidied up the area around the access point to 2B, pushing the good bricks back, and loading the broken ones on to the dumper and wheelbarrow for removal behind the beginning of 2B.

The day started blowy but dry. Fairview arrived around lunch time, and brought heavy rain ! 3 drenched volunteers and Richard managed to sort out 22 slabs, and lay 3 piles opposite 2b. Afterwards we broke up the unusable ones and put them behind 2b as well. Once Richard had gone home, the sun came out again. Oh well.

Brief sunshine highlighting Platform 1C setting out

In the morning there was a gang of 3 removing ivy from the trees along the stream in the car park field, and yours truly spent a happy hour digging for spoils by the goods shed. I got another hatful of GWR porcelain for my troubles. When will I have enough to glue any pieces together? Not yet, it seems.

With the dumper running, we also tidied up no fewer than 6 dumpy bags of weeds, dug up by Vic, and gave him back the empty ones. Great progess on the flower bed, and the first snowdrops are out.

Despite the weather, Julie had a customer and made £7,- !

All in all, not a bad day, with lots of small jobs done, and all the brick laying on 2b finished. We left at 16.30.

 

Jim renovating a line side cabinet door for 2B

Best regards,

Jo 

A big thank you to everyone who turned out today -  I gave them the choice of a well earned day off and still they came for a soaking and blow dry!
Some extras from Terry:-

With regard to the blog entry, the original reason for our trip down to the stream was that there was a tree leaning precariously across the footpath and you had to duck under it to get past and its roots were showing, so we thought it might be dangerous for walkers, so we felled it and there is now a new bonfire to start and a pile of logs for a passer-by to have! Danger cleared.

With regard to sorting the slabs, we got absolutely soaked and decided to abandon the recovery and sorting operation due to the atrocious weather and the fact that the grab was slipping off some of the black, which Richard said he had never seen happen before. It was therefore deemed too dangerous to continue (H&S in action!), so we deposited the slabs recovered and retired to the warmth of the mess hut, with the intention of going home but also took the opportunity of having a short discussion about the Avonmouth brick recovery.

However, the weather cleared, so we found some jobs to do, and thankfully, the wind actually dried our clothes for us, so I didn’t need to drive home wet!  Despite the weather, we were all very happy with the progress made yesterday (and I slept well last night).