It's still dark, these mornings. We are only one week away from the longest night. Your blogger afforded himself a few more minutes in bed today, after all, he is retired! Sunrise was at 08.09 this morning, and great was his surprise to see that the first volunteer had checked in at....07.05 ! What? Such dedication! But it bears fruit, the great wall of Cheltenham is getting longer and longer, and the end is getting closer every day we work there.

Here is the opening shot of the day, with a low sun just about reaching into the cutting that is the station. There were 7 of us today, of which 4 brick layers, so the job tootled along pretty well.

Here they all are, two at the front, and two on the rear backing up. By the time this photograph was taken, it got passably warm as we stood in the weak sun, but a few minutes earlier it was bitterly cold, which is particularly bad for someone standing still, like a brick layer. Lucky were those who were allowed to wheel in the mortar! But the distance is getting so short, it's hardly anything to work up a sweat about.

Pete had the right idea - thick gloves, and a bobble hat. A good part of that pile of reds behind him is now in the wall. Meanwhile,

... a request came out to measure and count the number or original slabs (removed many years ago now) to see what sort of length we have in total, should we decide to use them. They were in three piles - by the old waiting room, behind the signal box, and here, underneath a huge mound of brambles. Brian was chartered to sort this out with his brush cutter. This enabled your scribe to count the slabs, which came to 132! However, they were of all different lengths, being made of natural stone. The average length came to 5ft, so that could be as much as 660ft of slabs. On the other hand, they are somewhat careworn, an expert will have to judge if they are re-useable.

Back at the 'coal face' brick laying continued remorselessly, and here we seen JC on blues at the front, with Tony on the rear in reds. Paul was 'muck man' and ran up and down the site with mortar to resupply those spots. Woe betide if a cry of 'COMPO !!!' wasn't answered in 10 seconds...

After lunch, the 'blue bricklayers' had laid two rows on the 140m and 150m sections, so bringing both up to the start of corbelling. Tony and Pete immediately followed this in reds behind, but a vast pile remains. Just as well, as we are running out of reds, and it looks as if we might have to finish the job in blues all round, of which quite a few still remain on top of the cutting, as visible in this picture.

With an hour spare after lunch, Keith, Brian and yours truly attacked some of these piles, and brought down something over 1000 bricks down to be stacked in the next section, which will be the 170m one. A row of concrete blocks has already been positioned here.
From the 21 stacks remaining on top of the cutting we brought down all the remaining reds (one stack) and one and a half stacks of blues, leaving a little under 19 stacks to go.

At the end of the day, their pointing done, Bob and JC found a few moments to set out the next section at 170m, using a spare setting out frame. John O had great fun changing the '130' marked on it to '170', with a thick felt tip marker. Sweeeet...
So here you can see where this is going to go, and how much is left afterwards. Just a short walk now!

A final look round the site found that the contractors had done a fine job of regrading the slope at the foot of the path. It has been seeded, and at the top a row of pines has been planted. (or put back)

We have been very lucky with the weather, as progress this year has been pretty much uninterupted, with the result for all to see. We should be able to continue, if perhaps intermittently, over the Christmas break.