Thursday 4th June
Fortunately today saw the largest attendance of a Drainage team working day for some while. Also fortunately, the weather was cooler and ground conditions softer. This enabled a planned task for the mini digger to be accomplished by hand.
Jonathan, Dee and Phil were first to depart from Winchcombe, heading to Pecked Lane at Bishops Cleeve. Their task was to clear accumulated debris from the trash screen on the inlet of culvert 39A.
Also heading to Pecked Lane (eventually) were Roger and Martin (J). They were planning on painting milepost uprights and bridge parapet rails. However the ongoing showers prevented that; black MIO paint must not be applied when rain is likely. Hence they concentrated on de rusting the items that will be painted another day; and measured out the correct location for mile post 17. Currently this is a loose wooden post with a yellow BR style head leaning up against the boundary fence. To ensure that the replacement post is 440 yards from 16¾ and 440 yards from 17¼; they had to walk past the crossing to 17¼. On the way back they collected the wildlife monitoring cameras which had been placed to determined the amount of badger activity near milepost 16½.
The remaining members attending (John, Ian, Dave, Polly, Nigel, Andrew, Peter) travelled to the foot crossing between Gotherington and Bishops Cleeve. The prime task was to construct an extension to the low mileage wing wall of the outlet of cross drain 37D; incorporating the outlet of the new embankment drainage pipe in the slip repair. Also undertaken was the back filling of the raised exit chamber of 37D; usefully disposing of the old thick concrete lids and some other rubble.37D final exit chamber completed with backfill. Wingwall extension with outlet of the slip drainage pie. Sloop board temporary covering to prevent any rain washing out the mortar of the pointing.
With Jonathan, Dee and Phil joining the group, some final fencing work around the footpath was doen. This included treating the cut ends of the fence posts and rails.
Cross drains 37C, and 37E were subjected to some preventative maintenance. The bores were rodded through, and inlets and outlet cleared of weeds. For the intermediate chamber of 37C we used grabs and a small shovel to remove the gravel and silt that has built up there. Whilst the amount of material removed was not huge, this regular cleaning such as this help prevent problems occurring.37C intermediate chamber (up side), all clean. 37E inlet cleared of silt and growth on the concrete apron.
After lunch all twelve of the team set to work digging a ditch to insert the final length of perforated twinwall pipe that drains the repaired slip. This was the task that originally we had planned for the mini digger. As that was still in use on the platform extensions at Toddington; we decided to dig this by hand. With a large team; soft ground conditions and cool conditions, this did not take that long. Probably it took less time that it would have taken to get the mini digger on and off site!Orange army at work! Ditch digging to bury the last length of the slip drainage pipe to run towards the boundary hedge. Now you don't see it - apart from the very end at the boundary. We certainly proved the "Many Hands Make Light Work" idiom.
Wildlife report: The first arrivals at Manor Lane, Gotherington reported a roe deer. On the old lids of 37D we discovered a small mammal skull; maybe a rabbit. This might have been a victim of the raptors; we spotted both buzzards and red kites. Other bids noted today were black birds, song thrushes, robins, skylarks, chiffchaffs., long tailed tits and great tits. Lot of spiders in the chambers and bores of the cross drains. Ox eye daisies are plentiful on the up (Malvern) side of the embankment - that was the side which was cut last autumn with the robot flail.
