24/6/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Stu Lindsay, Dave Walker

2.5hrs

Tight on numbers tonight as Jon ill and no-one else about. Despite little rain since last week, there was quite a lot of water in the puddle and dig so we set to clearing that first with the pump. Once cleared, Mike got on with digging, followed by James and then Estelle. All digging in the dig itself tonight, although mostly above into an aven as it all looks like it wants to slump on us! Suspect it will self-dig before next time again. 52 buckets removed plus a few rocks including some of the ones stashed from last week.

18-6-19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Chris Seal

2hrs

Considerable amount of rain had fallen since last visit, so we needed to use the pump. Extended the pipe and electric cables so we could also pump the dig too as there was a couple of feet of water in there as well. Got the puddle as dry as we could and then proceed to spend the evening digging that out as it’s been on the to-do list and we’ve been putting it off… Dave and Chris went in first to dig, followed by Estelle and then Jon. The slurry in the puddle is almost gone now and grill removed for the moment. Hopefully next week we can get back into the dig and try and clear some in there. About 60 buckets removed plus some rock moved to top.

12/6/19

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

2hrs

After quite a bit of heavy rain, there was an expectation we may have to pump – Estelle popped down to the end while the others were getting ready and found that the dig itself was under about 18” of water, which appears to be coming in from the aven above it, but the ‘puddle’ had only risen very slightly. The dig looked like it was going to be easy to bale, so went out to send first diggers down! Jon and Stu on surface and bagging happened too. James dug first and between him and Mike they took out 7 buckets of water from the dig to the hole in the floor up passage. James then dug from the end and it was hard going as a lot of that white nougat type stuff, but he managed to remove a large boulder which was passed up passage a bit for breaking up, which was done during the session by Dave and Estelle. Mike dug next and he decided not to dig in the dig, but to help get rid of the sediment and floor in the puddle which really needs us to do whilst it’s drier, particularly now we know the dig will fill up with water rather than the puddle… (although this raises another issue, while we’ve plenty of electric cable to get to the dig with the pump, we will need to get an extension on the blue water pipe as bringing it in a further approx. 7-8m will bring the end too close to the top of the shaft.) 

Mike removed 17 buckets and then swapped with Dave who continued filling from the puddle area – he got extras as digging was quick and it wasn’t quite pub time! 56 buckets total of spoil plus a few skips of rocks.

4/6/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker

2hrs

Estelle dug first, there had been a slump over the last week from the roof to the right, so the first few buckets came from that before she started digging. Also the puddle side is drying out so on each person’s shift, the bucket carrier person ended up filling or topping up a sneaky few. Mike dug next followed by Dave. All filled 17 buckets – we worked hard spread out so we could get everything to the surface and as the 8:45 alarm hadn’t gone off, once 51 filled, we sent another 9 buckets down to fill with slop from the puddle! Disgusting stuff, like thick chocolate sauce – hard to fill the buckets and hard to empty and clean them… We probably need to aim to do circa 10 buckets of this per week to get rid of this sediment before the winter! Next week’s digging moved to Wednesday down to MCR meeting.

28/5/19

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

2hrs

Mostly able to do the entire spoil run to surface today with 6 of us, although hard work. Used the opportunity to get rid of a lot of rocks that had been stacked in the system and about 20 skips full of them were removed. Stu started building a wall behind where the exit haul is that should help protect the hauler eventually and give a bit more spoil dumping space! Dave dug first, followed by Alex and then James. All filled 17 skips each and were emptied with no bagging. End is continuing to look different with boulders held together with spoil and the white nougat type stuff, which is really hard to remove but we appear to be digging ourselves a chamber now! The puddle is drying out a bit and the blancmange consistency looks like it might be possible to clean some of it out soon…

21/5/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley (late down to train delay from London), Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker

2hrs

Hard work with 4 to start, increasing to 5 about half hour after we started. Having to stage it, so only gives the opportunity for 3 people to fill the 17 buckets each. Estelle went in first as hadn’t seen it for a few weeks, was very impressed as to how much progress had been made. It’s widening out and they’ve gone down in the floor more. Lots of big boulders in floor, but passage is quite sizable and almost made a chamber at the end now – definitely feels like it is changing character. Jon went in next followed by Mike and then we went to the pub.