Wednesday 19th June and Flaming June at Last!

Corbelling and backing up

The weather today was suddenly summer like! I was in the happy situation of having a visit from my Granddaughter Polly today and was away.

Twenty volunteers were on site and split into 3 teams. The bricklaying on Platform 2 was sub divided into a team corbelling, and  a team working on the final courses at the northern end.
It was sweltering weather  but work continued  until 17:00. We are now in a position to lay further coping slabs next week (A big thank you by the way to those generous supporters who continue to sponsor the laying of the slabs)

Up to level 6 on the Northern end!

Bob Jones almost nose to nose with the corbelling

At the southern end of platform 2 , Terry and Rod were finishing off the backing slabs that act as a rear buffer for the infill. Lifting the 2x2 slabs and barrowing the concrete is not a lot of fun in the heat, but they managed to complete it and pull forward some of the top soil at the back of the slabs. We should be able to put some ballast behind the wall to bring the height up to ducting level within the next week.

Peter and Gordon in action - remember the 60s Duo?
They've come out of retirement

We have made such great progress with Platform 2 that it is planned to put another 40m of footings in to continue the wall northwards. In order to achieve this we are having to move the mess room, the lamp huts, the toilet and the equipment lean-to. Today we were only able to start with moving the lean-to shelter for the dumper etc. The first stage is to partly disassemble it. A new area was levelled (thanks Ron). More on progress next week.










Finally and most importantly Chris Helm (Broadway Safety Officer) and Gordon Wood (CDM Coordinator) gave the Wednesday Gang the safety refresher course. It was difficult to find any shade, but it looks as though they managed it!