Today was cool to start with but the sun came out soon and quickly the volunteers were working up a sweat, this week on two sites: the Buried Lock site and the Swansea Canal Centre.

First up, in the Buried Lock site, Gordon assisted by John Gw, Bob and Sue, built a splendid flight of steps to provide access to the new green corridor. Paul and Sue then painted the steps with wood preservative.

Gordon mixed the mortar so that Dai, Alan T, Alan W, John Gr, Mike and Andy could continue to line the by-wash with slag stones.

Gordon pointed the sides of the new pound in order to create a water-tight dry dock.

At the Swansea Canal Centre in Hebron Road, Chris, Gill, Ronnie and Martin laboriously weeded the garden where grass is beginning to choke the shrubs and wild flowers. Martin spread pollinator attractive wild flower seeds over the cleared earth and watered them in. Let us hope the bed will look as lovely this year as it did in 2022.

We all met for tea in the Buried Lock site, where we enjoyed three delicious cakes baked by Margaret.

James Daley and his team were busy too erecting the steel work required to support the living roof. Of course, such rapid progress in the rebuilding of the derelict old timber yard produces a lot of debris. Here behind the back wall old bricks, rotten wood and metal girders await reuse or disposal.

And finally, a huge rafter was retrieved from the old building, transported to the Buried Lock site and cautiously positioned on the far wall beyond the new pound, where it will form part of a storage space for all our equipment.

What a busy day in glorious sunshine! Two-site working is a great way of keeping all our volunteers gainfully employed, so collectively we all made progress on a variety of tasks.