7 JAN – RETURN OF THE MONDAY GANG

It’s not that the Monday gang have ever been away – it’s simply that no blogger has attended their activities and celebrated their achievements recently.  So here’s to all those missing Mondays – well done gents.

On show today were Dick, Chris, Dave T, Dave G, PeteW, Roger & Mike – plus motley crews from Lineside Clearance and others who were considering the detail of how to get the rolling stock (and I use the term rolling pretty loosely!) out of the way so that the Hunting Butts tunnel – amongst other structures –  can be inspected.  There is rumour that the various wagons will be parked alongside Platforms 1 and 2 at the Racecourse Station which will be a sight for sore eyes!  Look forward to that blog.

Dave G and Roger were painting, Mike was sweeping, Dave T was burning small stuff and stock taking in the Ticket Office whilst Pete, Dick and Chris were weeding.  Meanwhile, down at the end of Platform 2 embankment conditions were ideal for a real bonfire: modest West/South-West wind keeping the fire well supplied with oxygen but blowing the smoke away from the A435!  So, as a reward for numerous Saturdays of hard labour raking and bagging pine needles, pine cones, pine boughs etc etc there was a couple of hours of glorious flaming conflagration.

Here’s some of the pile before:

And here’s the during

And a lot later:

Also burnt was one half of an old sleeper, two fence posts, three tree stumps, four ……. – well, you get the picture.

If anyone feels they have missed out I only managed to dispose of half the massive pile of debris so there’s plenty left for the weekend, viz the other half of the sleeper etc:

Burn, baby, burn!

Regards,

Tim