Sunday April 17th 2016 bright and chilly, great day for bridge building and a bit of ribaldry or perhaps rivalry.

On John Yeomans field, opposite Barbers with its VTT (very tall tree), a washaway of a culverted bridge that used to deliver a very pleasant footpath (footpaths can be pleasant) into the meadows beyond and up to Highfields. Reported in 2007 after the GREAT FLOODS, the PONS, with their usual alacrity, rushed on to site in 2016 with lots of (competing) ideas, most of which were executed in the next couple of hours by rival groups. There were the bridge boys, who constructed, fitted and painted a magnificent wooden cantilever leaving footgangers with no place to go, as the field gate, the next obstacle, opened the wrong way, threatening wipe off into the chasm below. There was the damn and causeway group that spent much time regressing to their youth, moving rocks, breaking concrete and damning the stream so it went the ‘right way’, all with shouts of ‘isn’t this fun’ and ‘do you remember when we used to do this’?

Andy P came in for some special focus. Standing in the rushing water he just could not seem to understand JP’s instructions even with the gallery of onlookers interpreting for him. He was last seen rummaging about in the nail box for his tablets.
At the end of it all, and the gate opening swing reversed by spanner man Tom, there were TWO ways to cross-by bridge and by causeway. Pipes cleaned, the grateful water tinkled its way downstream to join its bigger brother (oh alright, sibling then) the Laugherne Brook, on its way creating quite a water feature over rocks in the bed, constructed exclusively for us by Simon ‘Charlie Dimmock’ Honeyborne.

Two other smaller tasks were undertaken. Ben and John C strode up field to replace a waymark post that has a history of being knocked down by the local livestock that uses it as a rubbing post. The animals won’t have much trouble to repeat their vandalism this time, because a few days later we took a secret film of a very wobbly post, easy to lift out of the hole. As I am rushing off on hols I haven’t time to uplift the film but it is here in case of need. The other errand was to clean up and replace steps where the footpath leaves the B4204. No problem, done and dusted but there was an add on to this–the signpost cannot be seen across the field, so an unnamed person who is about to go on leave, nailed a long wooden pole so that it stuck up to provide a sightline. It looks ridiculous when you drive past and may cause accidents. It doesn’t help as a sight line either, much too short. Ah well.