We had hoped for better weather for this work party, it’s July after all, but it wasn’t to be! The rain rained, then it rained some more, but despite that there was a good turnout of volunteers at the Buried Lock site.

Plans to continue facing the new by-wash were a washout (literally). But the wetter, softer ground enabled Martin and Moira to continue planting-up the ‘green corridor’ bank at the back of the site, putting in a range of plants such as Red Valerian. Martin also took time to sort through a pile of soil that Gordon had delivered, recovering plants and bulbs which will be reused to enhance our site borders.

Chris M dug out the edge of the bank so that Alan T could recycle large slag blocks to form a retaining wall. Further up the site Gordon was laying breeze blocks along the wing wall to the by-wash, which will be topped with facing stone at a later date to match those around the new boat basin.

Alan T noticed a grating in the centre of the site which was completely clogged after recent groundworks and no surface water was draining away, causing the area nearby to flood. John G, Andrew and Gareth took up the grating and we were amazed at what we found! With some difficulty the vols removed around half a cubic metre of wet earth, sand and roots to clear the chamber – a tricky job well done!

Half of our volunteers had been dispatched to Coed Gwilym Park to pull weed from the heavily congested canal. Huge quantities were removed with drag forks by Alan W, John Grav, Aled and Bob and left on the side to drain before being moved to the wooded area to rot down into compost to nourish our borders. As always it was a filthy job, but a clear water channel was created which will help water flow, and make life easier for our Sunday canoeists and kayakers.

Gill provided the coffee and cakes this week, and as we sheltered from the rain it was very cosy in the site office!

The day brightened as we ventured out later and Ronnie, Chris Grav and David G were able to weed and tidy the borders around the canoe store.

So despite the weather we again made progress on several of our schemes, which we’ll follow up next Tuesday. It can’t rain again next week – can it?