Tuesday
Hermitage of Braid
Today we ventured back to the Hermitage to continue the work on the wheel chair access and to cover up the manholes. So once again there was a lot of barrowing to do! 
Leveling off occured first by taking barrow loads of hard texture up the hill, new VO Victoria soon got the hang of ordering where the dumping should go.However, it did mean she was left with the job of raking and tampering a lot of the hard texture into place and as a consequence went home with several blisters.
In comparison to last week, where it was pouring with rain, we were lucky and the sun shone all day allowing for a spot of sun bathing over lunch. After which, a lorry arrived with a pile of pebbles so the volunteers could alternate between taking barrow loads of wind sheet and pebbles ( it is always good to have variety in life). By mid afternoon it was decided that attempting to tamper down all the wind sheet was going to result in extremely sore arms. So, a novel technique of using a wooden board and dancing on it was taken up by VO’s Dave and Victoria and it seemed to do the job.
In the mean time the other group of volunteers managed to cover up three man holes.
It’s looking good guys, well done!
Wednesday
Tootled down to Redhall Walled Garden, to help them prepare for a big event on Thursday. Full bus for once (pretty rare on lovely hot days). Spent the day cutting back nettles. Lunch spent in the shade. In the afternoon spent some time fruitless-ly hunting for oak saplings in (you’ve guessed it!) nettles. By this stage it was really getting too hot…and work has slowed down somewhat, so Willie kindly went and got some nice cool water from Redhall for us.
At Alan’s suggestion we went on a nature walk in the coolth of the woods. Saw some familiar plants, many unusual dogs and several inflatable lilos.
Returned to the Garden to lay out some tables and chairs (and some ice lollies) then returned to the bus.
Good work guys!
Thursday
We headed into town to pick up an extremely small group; Neil, Stuart and we met Martin on site.
Back to the Hermitage, to try and level out the hard standing area. Much barrowing of pebbles and whin-dust to fill in the holes which were made by Dave. Lunch outside, where unfortunatly John lost his lunch to a free roaming labrador.
Further excellent barrowing followed by an early finish.
To see a selection of photos from past and present projects, click here