26/3/19 from Mike Moxon

Naomi turned up again, with her own trowel! So Jon dug first filling 16 tubs whilst Dave tried to break up the boulder, then we doubled shifted them back to Stuart hauling at the entrance. Mike & Naomi filled the next 16 - repeat procedure & Dave finished the night off to total 48. Some big blocks to reduce & remove when we've freed them up. Then all except Naomi retired to the pub.

18/3/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon (back for first time after eye operation), Stu Lindsay, Dave Walker, Naomi Brazier

2.5hrs

set up the pump as the water was fairly high (probably a good 18”-2ft above the floor at deepest part) and left it going while we did other stuff. Raised the ladder up about 3 rungs and then went back to looking at the water, it had dropped by about 6" by then which was starting to expose a couple of large boulders by the dig. Another 15mins and we were just about able to dig but just before it got to that point, Estelle removed the boulders and passed them back to Dave to break up/get rid of. Got about an hours worth of digging, Estelle first, then Dave then Naomi. Filling bags and also rescued mating toads from the dig and put in the pond! It's toad rescue time of year again... 

5/3/19

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

2hrs

Dropped the number of buckets each to 15! 17 last week was too hard… Stu again opted to haul and part fill sacks, while the rest of us took it in turns to dig. The end is now about 1.5m beyond the current end of the puddle area and having removed a couple of large rocks, is mostly back to mud/clay but with more large rocks starting to emerge again. The passage seems to be sort of heading slightly left with the right side closing in a bit. Hoping that the forecast rains don’t fill it up too much, suspect next session will be pumping. Also next session the ladder needs raising. 2 frogs and 1 toad rescued from spoil heap and deposited in the pond.

26/2/19

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

2hrs

Stu didn’t feel up to digging, he just wanted to haul on surface and was also helping by putting the first couple of buckets in the bags so we could then finish topping them up. The rest of us took it in turns to fill the 17 skips we appear to have in circulation at the moment. Mike is out of commission after an eye operation so being stuck with only 5 of us is a bit of a killer to get to surface and all positions are hard work, but I guess a damned good workout! The puddle was about the same level as last week, digging is still heading forwards and we’re having to keep the floor level above puddle height, but it’s still about 3ft or so high. Boulder in the middle that looks like it will come out next week. Filling bags as we need to raise the ladder again soon and also build up the wall around our hauling spot. 1^st frog of the season rescued and returned to pond.