Vince, Nick. Jon, and Jake
A smaller team assembled at the farm for today’s digging session and a little earlier than usual. We changed and wandered up to the cave. There the bags had dried nicely in the recent warm spell and excess sediment still adhered was easily shaken off. The bags were bundled into randomly numbered packs usually somewhere near to twenty. All headed underground. We had decided not to open a Can of Worms this session but instead all lend support to Nick’s activity in the far NE extent beyond Trick or Treat. Nick was in his element, happily loosening the sediment and enthusiastically filling bags, on many occasions a little too enthusiastically filled! The spoil was then dragged through the cave to be temporarily stored at the bottom of the pot. a consequence of the clement weather was that the cave was drying, and the lack of lubrication resulted in more effort was required to haul the skips. Water was applied to ease the skips, but this was in short supply so could only be done sparingly. We persevered.
As time approached midday Nick was persuaded to stop filling bags and all together, we moved back to clear the cave. Jake reported back from the surface that the clegs were arriving in “gangs of twenty” it was a good job I had refreshed the supply of insect repellent.
Eventually the cave was cleared, and the final task was to empty the bags – about 65 of them. Not all of these bags were easily relieved of their contents and required some coaxing, turning inside out and given a jolly good shaking!
No pub today as the staff had gone to Glastonbury. Some of the team had thought to bring their own refreshments to the entrance, others went thirsty! All was good.