Steady progress on Day 5

After the thrills and spills of the day before, yesterday was a day for a steady effort. It's always the same in the first week; it can be very frustrating not having a great deal to do and knowing that things will be much more hectic as the opening approaches.

Work has gone on preparing the main moorings, and the various cabins continue to turn up. One challenge waiting for the main wrg camp is readying the main car park. Marston's have very kindly donated the use of some spare land of theirs by the canal, but it needs just a touch of sorting out:

The entry doesn't look too bad...

It needs a bit of strimming and so on, that's all. It's when you get inside that the scale of the task becomes apparent:

Heaps of hard core

These two heaps have to be levelled off and spread out over the unpaved areas to make a usable parking area. Mike Sumner, aka site 3, is a professional contractor for this sort of job, as it happens, and estimates about two days work for a Merlo telehandler with a big bucket. We shall see!

Meanwhile, Mo and Martin, aka the Americans, started improving the towpath edge for the moorings, whilst another team on board Shropshire Lass tackled the vegetation on the offside:

The problem

This area has to be cleaned up so that boats can be moored two abreast on the towpath and still leave room for passing craft.

Here comes Mo with a rake

 I'm not sure if I've explained this before. Mo is from Scotland, and she and Martin live in Iver in Bucks. When they turned up at their first National camp, the first person they met misheard Iver as Iowa, and told everyone else that two Americans had arrived. They've been known as the Americans ever since.

Mo using a wheeled strimmer while Martin rakes

On the offside, much more aggressive tactics were called for:

Getting stuck in

There are four blokes in there somewhere.

It just shows what volunteers can achieve with basic tools and some goodwill.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on site:

Some musty hi vis vests were washed and hung out to dry

The Brew Hut cabin was delivered, but with the wrong key, seemingly.

Towing Glenfield

Bob Metcalfe is a stalwart wrgie, but couldn't be with us this week as he has his living to earn. He'd brought his boat, though, and the Waterspace team towed it into its proper mooring, so as not to leave it alone and undefended on the parkside moorings.