On Tuesday we went to Muiravonside where the Stirling group had done a fine job chopping down a lot of rhododendron. Our main task was to get the branches to the fire site and burn them. Sounds simple but it wasn’t! We had to negotiate steep, muddy slopes to get the wet branches down to very damp fire sites. Kate and Gemma didn’t seem to be having too much difficulty, but the other fire eventually got going around lunchtime (with a little help from a convenient plastic box lid). By the end of the day, just about everyone had slipped in the mud or fallen in the stream, except Anna…
We were back at Muiravonside on Wednesday, where Anna proceeded to fall in the mud as often as possible. Luckily there were plenty of embers left to start the fires again quite quickly (useful for drying wet socks). Halfway through the morning, those of us looking after one of the fires couldn’t quite get the rhododendron down the hill fast enough; so we recruited Gavin to help us out. We then couldn’t burn the branches fast enough to keep up with him while the other fire ran out.
Thursday saw us working in the orchard of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital correcting Chris’ mistake (well it was just before Christmas…). So we were taking up the carpet in the orchard (no, really) and re-laying it the other way up. We also prepared more of the ground for carpet paths by digging out the top layer of nettle roots. It was a bit of a dreary, overcast day but everyone got a lot of good work done.