Not Spring!

Maybe last week was a false spring. Certainly this week we did not even pack the deckchairs for lunch break and we all needed an extra layer of clothing. No snow, unlike Wednesday morning at Cheltenham Racecourse, but a cold wind and a couple of short, sharp, heavy showers. One was of sleet, and one contained some hail. So for a very short while sheltered edges on the ground did turn white.

Thursday 13^th March

An unusual working day for the Drainage team. Firstly we started with a tea break, complete with buns, in the mess room at Churchward House. The reason for this was to say good-bye to our departing Infrastructure Manager, Ian Scholey.

Andrew presents Ian with a leaving card (bespoke production by team member Nigel). [Photo by Jonathan]

To remind Ian of the large JCB digger that he was not able to acquire for us, we presented him with a model one! In the other box was some scale drainage items and a few small rocks we removed at Gretton. [Photo by Jonathan]

 

On departing Winchcombe, all eight of the team attending headed for Stanton Yard. With special trains running for the Gold Cup Race meeting at Cheltenham Racecourse, continuing with our in progress jobs at Bishops Cleeve was not practicable. Likewise, starting a task which requires excavation at Didbrook was out of the question. Additionally, with the Toddington to Broadway road closed for gas main repairs south of Stanton, we were not able to take our Telehandler or other plant north of Toddington. So for today, it was some odd manual jobs at Stanton!

First task for Nigel and Martin was to attempt rodding of the crest to cess pipe on the down side low mileage of bridge 10. Not unexpectedly, this was not successful. From the top the rods reached around 9 feet in; from the bottom less than 3 feet. So, the whole pipe will require digging out and replacing. Meanwhile, Ian, Roger and John recovered some lengths of scaffold and other metal tubes from the yard. We can reuse these for headwall safety markers and handrails. The other three attendees, Peter, Jonathan and Andrew, checked on the down side cutting side either side of the aqueduct (bridge 9). Even with over a week of fairly dry weather, there is still water draining off the adjacent fields down the cutting side to the down (Cotswold) side cess. We will keep this area under close surveillance this spring.

The whole team then cleared the cut brash and logs from the up (Malvern) side cess between bridge 8 (B4632) and bridge 7 (Stanton Fields). This was removed to Stanton Yard; our esteemed colleagues in the Clearance teams will then be able more easily use the Timberwolf chipper to deal with the brush. Keeping this section of cess clear of debris is important. The outlet from syphon culvert 7A leads to a ditch on our neighbours property. This ditch is badly silted; so following heavy rain it backs up, causing the culvert to overflow into the down side cess. Keeping the cess clear of debris reduces the time any overflow water takes to percolate into the cess drain below.

Sunshine .... but note the woolly hats. Clearing the down cess at Stanton Fields; Martin & Roger in the foreground, Jonathan, John and Peter at the rear of the Ranger.

... and showers. Five minutes after the photo above a heavy hail shower makes for a wintery scene. Bridge 7 (Stanton Fields) in the distance.

 

Even though clearance of the up side cutting between bridges 7 and 8 was only a few weeks ago, there are signs of regrowth. Lots of new grass shoots and a few arrowhead plants (probably one of the varieties of Sagittaria) are visible. Some mammals seem to be happy with the new landscape too, we noted quite a lot of burrows.

Finally, we undertook a little more recovery of surplus material from Stanton Yard. This was several barrowloads of small stone, extremely useful for packing around plastic twinwall pipes. Recovery of the whole pile will need to wait until we can take the Telehandler to Stanton again.

Wildlife report: The most unusual observation was of a black male pheasant just up the Stanton Road from the yard. Also we noted the first spring lambs – proving that nature knows it should be spring! We spotted rabbits hopping across the line by bridge 7; possibly these are the creators of the burrows noted in the cutting. A Red Kite swooped very low at one point, perhaps it was eyeing up the rabbits.