Some careful planning ahead of this bitterly cold day, on arrival it was only 12 degrees with a nasty wind blowing. Fortunately it warmed up a little later.
We first collected water at the arboretum, the stopcock had been open all week and no leaks, before going to the lookout picnic site to clean off the large table and then back to the mountain view site to give that one a second coat. Whilst Ellie was doing this I returned to the arboretum to prepare for the installation of the lower stopcock. I needed to dig back a fair bit to be able to bend the pipe enough to line the two sections up. It was too wet though to risk gluing it.
When that was done we went to one of the tables on the main picnic site to fix the rotten section in one of the planks, I had prepared a new piece but it was quite tricky to saw and chisel the old section out.
Halfway it was time for tea and we caught up with Jenny and Rob. Quite a bit to discuss about Open Day, Working for Water and entrance circle.
After tea Jenny and Rob were off to the arboretum, Ellie went and cleared most of the cowshit in the arboretum while I finished cutting out the patch and when Ellie joined me we glued it in. Next time I need to plane it a bit by hand and it will be as good as new.
I had also prepared a new leg for the remaining wreck of a table at the main picnic site and, with the help of the car jack managed to make it useable again apart from the one seat where a new support is in order.
In the meantime Neil came and had a look, he had been brushcutting to his hearts content near the entrance and quite satisfied with the progress.
Lunch was had and then we went with Pottaman to the entrance circle to explain to him what our ideas are and he promised to bring lots of soil. We intend to do the northern side first because we have some aloes that can be planted there.
Back to the lookout site to give the table its first coat and then to the arboretum to install the stopcock, do some weeding and general cleanup. Uncharacteristically we didn’t feel like ending off with coffee but removed some rocks for at the entrance circle to be used later on for the new rockery.
I’m sorry now that I didn’t take any photos, too busy for that.