It’s all very well Jamie declaring it’s all over, but today some of us had to go up the valley one more time.
There was another load of OA North kit to fill the truck on its last visit. There was all the History Group clutter, from H&S briefings to plank bridges, to pack into my van. There was the sweeping and mopping with Gail to smarten the rooms up ready for the next booking on Thursday when the Cumbria Vernacular Buildings Group come to visit the sites.
And finally, one last walk up the Damn Road to spread a couple of pounds of grass seed to try to mask our turf deficiency. I’m not sure how the grass will survive against the Return of the Rhizome but it was worth a try. I don’t suppose the Lawn Tennis Association will ever ask to use the site as a venue for a competition though it is fun to imagine the ball boys sweeping through the bracken and boulders to collect overplayed shots.
Grass seed was laid in the backfilled longhouse in an attempt to prevent the return of the dreaded bracken
Two sheep were there to check out what had been happening. I don’t know if they were escapees or if Richard has opened access to the pasture now we have finished but they could have caused us trouble. Did you notice all that red plastic fencing and posts back at base that we didn’t have to carry across the fell?
The sheep once again take over the site
I was able to give a special thank you to those volunteers who did such a fantastic job with the backfilling yesterday. I need to say the same to all of you who helped make this first season such a success. We couldn’t have done it without you. The Heritage Lottery Fund allow us to count every volunteer day as a payment in kind worth £50. With 16 days of ten plus diggers, you can see that you represent a tremendous contribution to the project.
The HLF need us to provide an interim report for how we’ve spent the first lot of their grant. We need to include comments and feedback within that report. We collected comments from our visitors but we need something from you people out there, diggers, visitors, blog readers and all. If you could take a minute to send something to duddondig@gmail.com it will be greatly appreciated.
Christine has left Millom today on her way back to Sweden. She hopes to come back again next year as she has had such a great time and worked so hard yesterday that her boots fell apart. I hope we will see all of you again in 2017 when we turn right from the track up to Long House Close.
Christine and her collapsing boots – we hope to see you again next year
There will be a report coming out once we have information back from the samples taken and we hope to have a gathering in Broughton to pass on the findings directly.
Watch this space.
Stephe
And here finally is the last model taken with the camera on a pole, just before we started backfilling.
Duddon Dig 