Today proved to be pleasant weather-wise – warm but not too sunny and mercifully no rain. The volunteers met at Bridge 8 to continue with the work of the previous few weeks. The team from Admiral Insurance was called away to another task, so we look forward to having them work with us in the not too distant future.

The first task was to slope the bank down to the bags that had now set solid. Mike F, Duncan and Andrew had this done in no time.

Moving on to laying more bags, Lance, Phil, Bob and Paul, replacing Rowan this week, mixed the mix and filled the bags. In Rowan’s absence, Lance had to work doubly hard. Alan T took charge of transporting the bags to the laying team.

As usual, Mike F was in the canal to set the bags in place, ably assisted by Duncan and Andrew. Alan T replaced Mike after tea. The photo seems to show him baptising himself that, luckily, was not the case. The final photo shows a completed stretch of reinforcement. The eagle-eyed amongst you may be able to spot Alan starting on yet another wash hole.

On Bridge 8, Phil delivered a batch of lime mortar that Sharon, Chris, Gordon and Andy used to point up some more of the gaps.

Elsewhere, Dave trimmed back vegetation. Martin, Moira and Aled set off to bash balsam at Ynysmeudwy Locks but found the path to be so overgrown that they decided to clear that first. They then pressed on towards the locks, bashing the dreaded balsam as they went, before heading back south for tea.

Tea was taken with a selection of finest cakes baked by Margaret. Andy was overjoyed to have the last slice of her world-famous gingerbread.

After tea, some time was spent cleaning an interesting artefact retrieved from the Buried Lock. It is thought most likely to be an iron used for smoothing the baize on a snooker table.

Gordon improved the towpath by compacting a layer of grit on top of the hardcore laid by CRT.

And finally, Mike found and rescued a tiny frog that had been sheltering in the bank.

A great turnout of volunteers this week meant that much was achieved with bank repair, repointing, hedge trimming and balsam bashing. Another grand day out!