HEPTONSTALL (Hawden Hole Woods) and GADDINGS

Two teams out today.

Heptonstall (Hawden Hole Woods and nearby paths!)

On a damp, intermittently drizzly day Fred and Frank were fortunate to be working in a sheltered woodland area on a variety of straightforward tasks. Namely:

installing a marker post; consolidating step-treads with aggregate; finding elusive (and sometimes non-existent) marker posts that required waymark discs and sorting out a wayward finger-post. These were not the most photogenic of tasks but typically we have:

I know it's misty, Fred but there is a path there somewhere!

And there it is, Fred, just where the marker is pointing . . .  but where are you?

Step-treads now consolidated with aggregate.

In an idle moment we did spare a thought for the other team doing drainage work on the exposed, bleak, moorland leading up to Gaddings. In fact, we came up with the following . . . . with apologies to a well known bard!:

Enter CROW

CROW.

'To dig or not to dig;- that is the question.

Whether 'tis better on the ground to drain

The rain and hail of horrendous downpours,

Or build a dam against the walls of water

And by opposing, stem them? To dig - to drain

Some more; and by digging find we endure

The aching back and a dozen nasty blisters

That flesh is heir to:- 'tis an outcome

Not to be envied. To dig - to drain -

To unblock the stream:- ay, there's the flood!'

[Exit, pursued by a squirrel. Whoops; wrong play!]

More next week (work that is, not parody!).


Gaddings (Jail Hole)

The other team, Stella, Richard J, Graham, Bernard and Gerald, worked on the Gaddings Jail Hole path at Lumbutts.

Hoping the rain would stop.

Work progressed even during heavy showers.

Richard J and Bernard plan the next stage.

CROWS under the Rainbow.

We shall return.