A bright sunny day today, with six 'diggers' on site. Today was the day we started the ducting for the replica lamp posts.

If I were you, I wouldn't start from there...

We started of with a supply of ducting, junction boxes, lids and unions. JC had made a very useful drawing of the layout of a junction box, but that nonetheless required deep study. Now where do I drop these things?

Drilling an extra hole

In order to unite the junction boxes with the bottom of the lamp posts, we will fit a 50mm pipe bend. This however needs feeding into the junction box. That required a lot of head scratching, and a quick trip home for John O to get an extra drill and kit. It was also discovered that a 110v extension cable will not take the juice to a 240v power drill - dang - so we worked in the gloom at the back of the container.

While we were preparing the junction boxes, Ron B was in the 3T digger running a trench up the back of CRC2A. That went pretty well. It just leaves the team to shovel the whole lot back in, once the 100mm pipe is in. Luckily the material is now loose.

John O and Bob struggle with the KY jelly and a pipe end.

There is a bit of a knack to pushing the chamfered end of the pipe into the ring in the mouth of the junction box. It needs a sharp knock, not two guys pushing in opposite directions. We learned the hard way, but after a while, having set out the first one, we got on pretty well.

John O brings a vital tape measure. 300mm from where, does it say?

The tricky bit was to get the correct depth, so that the lid of the junction box is level with the future tarmac level. There will be one of these junction boxes in front of every lamp post.

Brian retires briefly for a short rest.

While two of us laid the pipe, assembled it and got the depth right, three more back filled the whole lot as we went along. As the sun was shining brightly, this was hot work. This not being a true chain gang, brief periods for rest were allowed. Brief periods, Brian, brief ones !

At close of play.

At the end of the day, both pipe layers and back fillers had reached the same spot - the junction box at the bottom of the ramp, where the mains cable will enter the pipe run. You can see it in the foreground (with its lid a bit askew, it's just on a bit to stop dirt getting in.). This is about 60m of the 100m we need to do. After that, we can set the lamp posts in concrete, which will be fun. Something to look forward to next week.

While digging out the original clay, a question arose, to which we could not immediately find an answer. Maybe readers can help?

A puzzle...

Yes, we wondered,
What is older:

a. John O, or,
b. This ammonite?

(Puzzle set with John's permission, as he often wonders as well)