25/9/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, David Walker, Mike Moxon, Jeff Broom (MCG)

2hrs

Since the end collapse last week where the boulder came out of the roof and also a large amount of spoil, we took a step back and focused on clearing everything from the roof about 5m from the end onwards. A large amount was brought down and cleared, 15 skips each and it’s getting to be really hard work with only 6, so need to do some recruitment or look to change our processes on how we dig a bit. Getting quite wet in the spoil area now and more bagging needed and we need to plan to raise the ladder soon. What looked like a boulder in the roof, is looking more like a flake of roof now and above where the big boulder had come out a few weeks back, looks to have been a bit of one of those aven type things going on as quite a lot of roof spoil there, but goes back to normal before and after. Next week or two still need to focus on the roof area. Dave agreed to collect more bags from Cheddar Ales, so thank you Cheddar Ales yet again.

19/9/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, David Walker, Jonathan Riley, Mike Moxon, Kriss Cawson (MCG), Mark Denning, Pete Hellier, Adrian Miles (BEC), Wayne (WCC)

2hrs

Moved to a Wednesday evening this week as there was an MCR meeting Tues and generally we wouldn’t have made it worthwhile, but Wednesday collected us a few new faces, which was useful to move a lot of spoil rapidly and bag quite a bit too. The 4 that hadn’t visited before headed into the upper series to have a look around it before heading into the digging section. Estelle was doing some filming for a Hidden earth video for the Mendip Roundup. Mark started digging first until he ran out of steam and then James took over and dug 10 skips, then Pete, Adrian and Wayne had a turn before Kriss went in as the last digger. During the evening there had been a bit of dig fever going on and tunnelling rather than bringing everything down from the roof and also clearing the floor out and a large boulder fell out of the roof while Kriss was digging, briefly trapping him, but he was uninjured thankfully. We brought down a load of the roof mud before exiting the dig and next session will be a major clearing session.

Video from tonight - https://youtu.be/j6HTny9XvEc

11/9/18

report from Mike Moxon
Mike Moxon, Stu Lindsay, Duncan Simey
Whilst I embedded 3 pipes in the sack wall Duncan recalibrated the distoX, then we surveyed to the end from a point on the boulder. Meanwhile Stu drilled the fallen blocks & removed the aerial runway from the far wall. At the end I moved the tools a bit further back, so they aren't under the mud in roof. Several frogs had emerged in the rain, but we left them down the hole. First night of the darts season when we got to the Waldegrave ( but still managed to leave 5 mins before the chips)

4/9/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, David Walker, Stu Lindsay

2.5hrs

Bit lean on numbers tonight, but Stu went in first to dig as he hadn’t for a while – got to just before the end and the boulder we had thought was roof was suspended and of course Stu hadn’t seen the end for a while, so didn’t immediately twig that boulder had moved since last week! Estelle noticed though and stopped Stu before he got to it and then Stu used the bar and very easily made it drop to the floor, where he set to starting to break it up a little before climbing over it and continuing digging the end. The rest of us had a good go at breaking bits off it when we were the hauling person and reduced it considerably over the course of the night. It was very calcited inside and fractured easily into gravel! Stu did dig for much of the night as the rest of the working spots are quite hard work, so we did what we could on hauling and exiting the spoil. Plan for next week when we know reduced numbers is to survey if possible and look to reduce the boulder further, possibly chemically if needed and also to remove some bits of rock from the haul path that are making it flow less easily. Capping probably best or plug & feathers.

28/8/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley, Claire Havard, Stu Lindsay, Chris Barrington (MCG)

2.5hrs

Good digging session, James then Dave in first, then Claire, followed by Estelle, Jon, Mike and Chris – all on 10 buckets each, made for a good session. All bagged and looking close to being ready to raise the ladder soon. Need more digging bags soon too. Dig is still easy digging of mostly clays and mud with a few rocks in there too.