Quite a nice day today – fairly mild, fairly sunny and no rain. The troops were at two locations – Bridge 8 and the Swansea Canal Centre.

By Bridge 8, the crack team of Lance, Rowan, Bob and Chris filled the hessian bags. We had an apprentice trundler today: Sharon added a new string to her bow. The dynamic duo of Alan and Mike set the bags in place, ready for inspection by Anna.

Gordon and John improved the towpath by widening it, laying red stone and finally a topping of ash.

Dave and Andy were faced by a large tree that was blocking the towpath. Their efforts with hand tools were in vain but, mercifully, Gordon quickly joined them and soon had the job done with his chainsaw. Paul helped to drag away the brash and path was soon clear.

Tea was taken with lovely cakes baked by Alan and Jan W.

Meanwhile, Martin and Aled were at the Swansea Canal Centre.

They were pleased to see work on the footpath being undertaken by our friends from Swansea Council workers. They removed a lot of overhanging tree branches from the Players Yard footpath opposite the Hebron Road site.

The fruit trees at continue to thrive. This is a ‘Surpize’ apple, the surprise being that the flesh is pink. Martin tried one. It really is pink and tastes good. It was only a very small one, so he hoped nobody reported him to the police.

Here Aled cuts the tall weeds on the hump garden down to size.

And finally, they uncovered all the sedums being swamped by taller plants, pruned the buddies which are still flowering and cut down a lot of the fennels which have keeled over. The fennel seeds taste delicious, and the tall branches make an elegant canopy above the sedum ground cover.

Martin also stopped by the Buried Lock site. The new composite lock gates have been ordered and the concrete base of the canal has been laid as far as up to the digger in the picture. Still a long way to go but very exciting.

Busy, busy, busy today. Dividing our labour between two sites can be very productive.