A wet day..... The forecast said that the rain would ease off. It did - at 3 o'clock, as we went home.
We spent the first hour in the cabin, with tea and mini Swiss rolls. Occasionally we would peer out of the door to look if we could see Cleeve Hill - nope. More tea.

Finally we got bored with this, and we set off regardless. The rain had reduced to a steady drizzle, which was bearable. There were a goodly 7 of us today, and the extra 3 made all the difference, as we had 4 people on barrows, one making mix, and two laying the edging slabs. That was a good team.

But first things first, those soft barrow tyres. Keith brought a rather swizz twin cylinder footpump, and prepped them all. Max 30psi, it said on the tyres, so how far dare you go? We settled on 20psi. No exploding tyres today.

Paul made it down again (he lives quite far away) and while he is hiding here, his presence was very much felt as he was on the mixer all day on his own, and got through about 2 tons of aggregate out of two dumpy bags. A creditable performance. At least he was warm, with all that shovelling.

No pressure then, Paul, but a queue quickly built up while he got himself sorted out. Four people on barrows today, remember, and only one on the mixer....

Eventually Paul got into his stride, and started building up a few barrow loads in reserve which built up at the business end. JC and Bob, on leave from rebuilding his kitchen floor, laid the edging slabs. Each one laid reduced the distance the barrows had to be pushed by one meter. Go for it, lads!

The ground being very uneven and sticky, the route of choice for the pushers was along the platform copers.

Nice train with 5542 there - it was a running day, a bank holiday - but a serious situation was building up in the foreground, two vehicles on a single line ! And your cameraman didn't have a token, now what? Thoughts turned to the awful crash at Abermule, what does the rule book say in this sort of situation? Eventually the laws of nature prevailed, 'might' was proved' right', and the empty barrow gave way. But not before taking this picture.

At 10.34, a train emerged out of the gloom. It did not seem to have a chimney, is that why there is no steam coming out? True to local folklore, if you can see Cleeve Hill, it must be raining, and it was, too. Those ancients were no fools.

An hour later, another train, 2807 in charge, and quite well filled too. There were 30 cars in the CRC car park too, and their owners huddled under the canopy from the rain. Yes, it was still raining. Can you imagine what that does to the clay on site, and to the boots that squidge over it?

After every delivery, the walk back with the empty barrow felt as if you were wearing moon boots, with a wobbly pad under your soles.

Here is Keith trying to get the sticky stuff off for the n'th time, before he set off again for the other end.

How do you know it's Keith? Clean trousers, see. He's very neat, our Keith.

Here's 2807 running round the train. Notice the steam going sideways, not up.
We can see Cleeve Hill: oh - oh!

Near the end of the day the rain eased off, and we had to set out the next stretch of line. The edging slabs have to be perfectly level, as well as in line. You can soon see a wobble if there is 200m of it. We take a measure off the copers, make it level, minus an inch to allow for a backwards slope of the tarmac.

Last picture of the day. Things were coming to an end - cement low, aggregate low, only a few edging slabs left laid out, and we were getting tired. JC spent the whole day on his knees in the clay, back and shoulders exposed to the rain, and there is only so much punishment you can take. We made it to the last lamp post before the foundations of the old toilet block, in the foreground. A quick walk back over what we had laid today revealed that there were 40 new slabs. We felt very pleased with that, almost as many as the first day, and we were one hour short today because of the very wet start.

No work at CRC2 next Monday 7th. JC is taking a rather well deserved holiday.

Quotes of the day:

' I think it's clearing up' (several times...)

'They can't complain about this one' (mixer load dispatched by Paul) - Oh yes they can !

See you in a fortnight.