The dedicated benches that surround Edinburgh’s beautiful Blackford pond used to number nearly 50! As 2010 begins that figure stands at 23!
It is our job to organise these remaining benches into some kind of order and secure them in place. A great start saw the volunteers thankful for some long awaited sunshine, quickly warm to the task of smashing a route through the ice that had rendered the paths treacherous and would make ours and the local resident’s journey to and from the pond easier.
After some initial vegetation clearance and tree crowning we were ready to start our precision hole digging. We came across old cobbles, big roots and quagmire conditions but dug on until we could lay and level our exceptional dry mix prepared by our experienced volunteers. We even had a great general knowledge quiz one lunch break courtesy of Sarah who quickly proved that we don’t know much at all! Good fun with lots of head scratching all round. The pond is a haven for local wildlife that includes a courageous Rabbit and the resident Swans who after a few days of our presence became incredibly friendly and would keep us company until a better offer of bread crumbs appeared.
This was obviously a job that really needed doing as the response from local residents confirmed, we were told stories of floating benches and almost daily the whole group was questioned and thanked by long time users of the pond as well as some younger bird feeding enthusiasts. Our volunteers enjoyed the task as we could all appreciate how important these dedicated benches can be not only to the family and friends of the deceased but to all that use the pond and the surrounding area. We all developed new skills and confirmed old ones with the actual securing of the benches presenting its own problems including the re-drilling of brackets and the awkward angles of drilling. Chris Peach enjoyed getting to grips with our big new generator which will be very useful for upcoming jobs.
To view photos of past and present projects and our volunteers in action please click here