How many members does it take to change a light flow?

Wednesday saw another mid-week workparty on Beat 3B, on a surprisingly chilly and sunless day. Luckily we were well down on the river bed, where it was a bit sheltered.

The river was remarkably low and had a very light flow, which was quite handy when we had to manhandle a huge tree upstream. This workparty had been planned for Share Farm, but the road was closed, so we regrouped at Harpers to finish off some work from a few months before (see 'The Big Chill' from 15 January).

When we cut down the huge fallen Ash above the footbridge, we left two huge rootballs and trunks sitting on the bank way above the river. This time we carefully (!) lowered them down and installed one as a deflector to deepen the flow in a very wide shallow area.

The other couldn't be installed where we wanted it, as the river bed was very solid rock, so we pushed, pulled and persuaded it upstream to form a new Berm beneath a crumbling bank.

As you can see, it took a huge number of people to achieve this, though most were productively engaged in supervisory and managerial duties for much of the time. Nonetheless, Andrew, Andy, Chris, David, Ian, Keith, Nigel, Paul, Tony (and I) all engaged very fully in drinking Nigel's classy coffee to wash down Andrew's delicious home-made Sausage Rolls, and the star guest appearance of some excellent home made Eccles Cakes from Tony.

Don't worry if you feel you're missing out on all this fun and socialising (and exercise); you may be if you don't join in, but you can do that again next Saturday (19th) - just contact Nigel.

Cheers

PeterB