Nearly there ...

Were one to be the excitable type, one could hardly contain it this week after another excellent turnout and yet another great effort from all concerned.  Thanks to Catriona, Phillip, Richard, Richard, Graham, Ian, David and Barry for all their hard work.

What did we get up to today?  Well, two bolsters were finally condemned after the Richards had beaten them into metal pulp while finishing off the required coping stones.  Both, I thought, rathered showed off by knocking up several 6" numbers as well as the remaining 3" stones which have evidently become a bit easy-peasy for our muscular duo.  In recognition of their tremendous labours, I append a photographic record of the raising of the first cope.  Brilliant job guys!

There's a clue as to our second achievement in the phrase 'raising the first cope' and you'll have guessed that we also finished the two 2" courses to bring the wall up to full height.

The more perspicacious among you may have noticed that we've also had a bit of a tidy up.  Barrow loads of walling and rockery stone now await new owners in neat piles nearer to the road.  No decision as yet as to what we do with our leftovers - suggestions welcome.  Overall we probably have about 20 tons available which says nothing for my quantity surveying and probably confirms the old adage that wallers are never satisfied with the stone at hand!

 I just threw that one in for the hell of it.  By the way, the only suggestion I've had for a collective noun for wallers was from Richard the Younger, who came up with ' a retirement'.  Just shows that the yoof of today have no respect for their elders.

Prompted by Barry, I've been thinking - always a dangerous tendency of mine.  Next week, we should have all the copes on and be well on with site clearance.  But Wednesday 7th is also the date for our next AONB taster day which means Emma I, Elaine and David can't be there.  Catriona is also away and  I recall someone else saying they couldn't make it. 

My proposal is therefore that we skip next week and invite everyone who can make it to a topping out ceremony on 14th September with cake and fizz provided.  Although I know the Trust is planning to celebrate our achievement at some stage, it seems a more fitting end to the project if as many folk as possible can make the final work day even if it ends by lunchtime.  I'll probably do some tidying up in the meantime and, if anyone particularly wants to work next week, we can get some of the copes on and make progress on site clearance.  Let me know what you think, especially if you still want to turn up next week.  Unless there's a barrage of objections, we'll put completion off for a week.

Nearly there people, nearly there!

On we go and up she comes ...

Another week, another blog.  Two sorries to start this week.  First to anyone who didn't show up on Wednesday because I forgot to e-mail and second for the slight delay in blogging.  There can't be many takers for the first apology since we had up to ten people on the wall this week - Roger, Phillip, Catriona, Graham, Ian, David, a brace of Richards, Andrea from the village and, of course, your illustrious chairman.

Sterling work again from all members.  The Richards will persist in making perfect copes and who are we to discourage them?  The rest of us now have all the 3" courses in place and have even begun to put the final 2" courses on. 

David and I have agreed that the wall end is in need of some remediation.  It seems to have slipped (we can't possibly have built it like that!) so we'll tackle it next week while the rest move on with the top courses.

In an idle moment, someone asked what the collective noun for a group of wallers ought to be.  We offered 'batter' (already used for fish fryers) and 'course' (or maybe coarse) but we should be able to do better than that.  Suggestions please with 'a prize' for the best suggestion.

Project North Stainley ought now to be finished on schedule (given precisely as September-October-ish) but there is a lot of clearing up to do.  All the spare stone above 2" thickness needs to be cleared back to the garden entrance for disposal so that we can get the ground prepared for autumn planting.  We made a start but there's lots more barrowing to do.  Just think how good it will look after we've tidied up!

See you next week!

Walling on 17th August

Determined not to get behind again so here's todays' summary.

A select band of five on the wall today - Tony, Paul, Catriona, Chris and Ian. 

A warm and sometimes sunny day which gave us a great opportunity to give the wall more altitude.  We finished the 4" course and first 3" course and are about half way round the bend with the second 3" course. 

And, yes, we did produce some more copes and Richard the Elder has promised to crack on with more next week.  Meantime, here's a couple of photos for the record.

This blogging lark is easy enough once you get started ... innit?

Hmmm ... no posting on the blog since May 18th eh?  Still not much has happened really has it?  I mean we only started about here ...

well, all right ... here ...

and now we're ... here. 

 

  

Wall 1 is finished, done and dusted and awaits the arrival of Lady Camilla who will allegedly take her seat as queen of the garden sometime this month.

We finally concluded that, in true walling style, we weren't going to have enough stone or that, if we did, it wasn't the right kind (whenever is it?) for making coping stones.  So we threw ourselves on the mercy of our suppliers and asked for some nice 3" to 4" lumps for the purpose. 

What arrived was near double that size and, shall we say, tricky to work into copes.  So we got another lot which this time resembled a heap of broken paving slabs but at least had the advantage of being more workable. 

We ( OK, I) suspect that the stone we would have liked, was delivered instead to a team of professionals who, in four weeks, built several impressive stretches of new wall on the A59 road between Harrogate and Skipton.  Nice job guys, but can we have our stone back please?

We've since learned how to break the big stuff into useful building stone and Wall 2 has been gaining altitude encouragingly as a result.  We 're up to about 24" so far, and if the gang turns out in the same kind of numbers we've been achieving lately, we should meet our completion deadline of Septemberish, although at this stage we're not prepared to specify a year.

We've found the project quite challenging but we're feeling quietly pleased with the end result.  Keeping a good line and batter on a curved wall takes some getting used to but we've all been prepared to admit when something has gone astray and accept a bit of remediation.

By the way ... here's our wildlife monitoring crew hard at work (Attenborough, for a change, is just out of shot)



and here's the result of minutes of painstaking and patient study ...



Awwww!

And finally in the spirit of globalisation and understanding among nations, here's how they build dry stone walls in Turkey ... the whitewash gives me an idea for finishing the North Stainley wall ...  I wonder what colour Farrow & Ball would recommend ... ?