30/5/23 Dig dig dig!

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Adrian Miles. Duncan turned up towards the end but didn't dig tonight. 

2hrs

Mike went in to dig the end with Estelle supporting. He focussed on digging above the hole mostly (the conveyor belt covers it nicely) and was removing plenty of spoil and rocks. He worked into the top of the rift above the hole and the texture of the spoil is more 'sediment' and softer layer from water flowing rather than the harder tiered mud/clay layers we normally see. Whilst we waiting for Adrian to turn up, James cleared 8 buckets from the chamber at the end of the railway of the flood slumping and made more stacking space and emptied those buckets. Once Adrian arrived, he and James started shuttling the buckets up to that chamber. 34 buckets were filled up from the dig and sent out and emptied and then we sent Adrian down with 12 more as we still had some time left. 54 buckets filled and emptied in total. Good digging session, but hard work with only 4. Hopefully more people back available next week. Went to Hunters as Waldegrave closed early tonight. 

23/5/23 back digging again, no longer flooded!

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jon Riley

2hrs

Arrived to find many of the buckets still part full of slimy sludgy water from the flooding and stagnating and sadly 3 dead fledglings and a dead rabbit between them too. We emptied all the buckets and headed down to dig. The hole at the end is now around 18" of water below the 'neck' of the rift, so heading down nicely and Jon said the pool above was at the grill last week and that was a good foot lower too. Estelle had taken down a piece of conveyor belt a few weeks ago and now it had drained, that was put over the hole in the floor to stop us getting too much spoil down it whilst digging above it. James dug, he started off by clearing flood debris spoil and then dug forward to the right first and then headed more left as the evening went on. Couple of rocks came out and there is still a mix of rock and clays, quite hard in places, so not the fastest to dig out. He filled about 30 of the 35 or 36 (not sure) buckets - quite a few were very stinky from stagnated water, hopefully by next time they will smell better! Whilst he'd been digging, the rest of us filled a few buckets with flood debris spoil in the passaged to clear up a bit and Mike and Jon managed to get most of the buckets to the top of the steps and were hauling the railway by the time Estelle and James came up with the last 4. Emptied all the buckets and lay them out to dry. Hopefully we're back digging every week now for a good while, could do with more people as only 4 of us was very hard work! Headed for sustenance in the Waldegrave after. 

16/5/23 dry enough to dig now...!

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley

15mins

Jon was changed when we arrived, so he headed down to check the state of the end of the dig. He came back reporting that the left side where the hole is was about 18" of water, but straight on and right was now diggable. With only 3 of us, there was little we could do, so didn't get changed and we headed to Waldegrave. We did note that there was possibly a couple of rocks that had come down from the walls by the fence and left of the fence and a few looks precarious, need to take a long pokey stick and see if any do want to come down easily to make it safer. Hopefully back digging with a full team next week and then for foreseeable.

1/5/23 still flooded

Estelle Sandford, James Begley

15mins

only Estelle went underground with oversuit over clothes as suspected it would be flooded still. It was flooded to slightly lower than where it was on 21/3 but not by much and does not look like it will be diggable for a week or two still unless very dry weather, which with the forecast is unlikely. Aim to check again on 16/5. Noted that since the last time we visited, the buckets were scattered so that indicates that it has flooded above them recently.