February? Call this February? Beautiful sun, blue sky, birds singing, I'm even wearing my shorts again, although I did have to scrape ice off the windscreen ten minutes ago..... Roy has decreed that we will be doing a bit more clearance of fallen trees on the Stockham section (which we own) partly because it needs doing, and partly because our glorious leader, Brian, is bringing a guided walk along the towpath this morning, and it is deemed to be a good thing that the interested folk of Wantage and Grove get to see us working.

So having put on overalls on top of my shorts - well, it's a bit chilly round the knees in the shade - we load up the wheelbarrows and set off along the towpath. Once again we are going to Tirfor a fallen tree, in fact it's the one that we didn't have time to do last December.

S'funny, the canal looks a bit shallow today... oh, Roy tells us that there's a hole in it at the other end of this section, and all the water is draining out into a syphon that runs from the houses across the fields. So before we get too settled at tree heaving, three of us are sent further downstream to build a dam. Mike comes along as well, in order to get over to the other bank.

Drat, I missed the exciting moment when Mike - now safely across the water - slid off the log and discovered that the water is, in fact, just exactly 2" lower than the tops of his wellies. Phew, what a narrow escape! This log is the informal bridge used by the Crown Cork and Seal workers to take a short cut across the water, and it's normally an inch or two clear of the surface, so you can see that the water level has fallen about a foot in the last two or three days, since the hole appeared.

Phil, Stefan and I set to work to throw a dam across the narrow point, otherwise all the water from the entire section will pour down the 'ole and be lost, which would be catastrophic for the wildlife in this section. Here's the best view of Phil! (only joking)

An hour or so later, here's our dam, and already the water downstream has fallen another inch or two. I have no doubt that by tomorrow, this section will be dewatered. Unfortunately, we can't do anything about fixing the hole, as we don't have permission from the landowner to work on that section. So all we can do is to try to save as much of the water as we can, and to hope that maybe now the landowner might respond favourable to our requests for a licence to work there.

We rejoin the others, just in time for a tea break: well, there's a coincidence. Afterwards, Roy gets the chainsaw out and clambers across to join Mike and his axe on the far side. Having looped a strop ("stout strap") around the fallen willow, they now finish parting it from it's roots.

Malcy and Jim survey the work in progress, in a very serious manner.

Vic demonstrates an ancient Native American greeting, presumably as part of an invocation aimed at getting something edible to emerge from the hedgerow.

In the background, Bob heaves away manfully (how else?) at the Tirfor, which is inching the fallen tree across the cut.

Bob oversees the repositioning of the strop, which was in danger of slipping off the end of the trunk. You can see what a monstrous root it has! Jim looks down from above, and is probably commenting on the truly eye-watering sulphurous smell that emerges when we stir up the mud. We can't wait for the day when the water flows along the length of the canal as it ought to, whereupon it won't smell anymore!

It's getting to be hard work to operate the Tirfor, so Roy clambers out on the corpse and starts lopping off some of the more accessible branches.

You can see on the bottom left of the picture is the steel hawser leading to the Tirfor, and on the right of the picture is the rope round the branch, so that once it's cut free, it can be dragged out of the water, while trying not to stir the mud up too much.

Every so often we have to reposition the winching point, in order to get a better angle. Here it's John's turn to hook up the big pulley around another handy tree, while everyone else gathers to discuss which direction we should go in, next. Or possibly we're all looking around for something that Vic can eat, not sure which.

Here's Malcy showing off how easy the winching is, doing it just one-handed.

(Actually, he was just winding in the slack.)

Once again, it's time to adjust the strop, so Bob clambers out onto the monster and delicately moves the strop around the trunk, trying not to get the water into his wellies as he does so.

Careful, Bob, it may not be deep but it's jolly smelly!

At last, the stump starts working it's way up the bank, under Phil's careful supervision.

I am still staggered at just how much you can move with a Tirfor, a steel hawser, and a good strong tree to act as a pivot! And although it's a lot slower than using heavy machinery, it's a good deal more eco-friendly, as it causes very little damage to the environment. Well, if you discount any muttered swear words from us, of course.

Here's a pleasant shot: John and Phil take it in turns to operate the Tirfor while Malcy sits in splendour and supervises.

Well, to be fair, he'd done quite a lot of the earlier winching....

And at last, hooray, the stump is safely up on the bank and the hawser has been removed.

Roy immediately grabs his chainsaw again, and starts the mammoth job of chopping the monster up into pieces small enough for the rest of us to stack under the hedgerow. This provides a great variety of wildlife habitats.

Nothing can resist the mighty chainsaw! The tree itself was completely hollow and rotten inside, which is of course why it fell down.

This is a regular hazard with the large number of "self-set" willows which grow along neglected canals. Yes, they look lovely, but they are very short lived, and are disastrously prone to just falling over. That's why we replant with other species along the towpath bank: I've lost count of how many little trees I've planted over the last, er, however many years!

Here's Vic and John concentrating on winding the Tirfor's steel hawser carefully back inside it's ergonomic transportation device, ie an old tyre. Never let it be said that we waste anything at Canal Club! Even old tyres have their uses.....

Finally (for me, at any rate) we clear the trunk of a broken willow, one which snapped during the storms last month, just above head height. At an earlier workparty we'd cleared away the fallen part, which was blocking the towpath, and now it was time to get down the rest of it before it landed on someone's head. Jim supervises with machete to hand, and in the background is Brian, back after leading his guided walkers safely home again.

Well, another good day's work, that's it for today.

And now a quick update: a week later, I went for a wander

along the Stockham section to see how our dam was holding up under pressure. Well, so far it's doing really well, the water is back up to it's normal level on our section of the canal, to the right of the photo, and the water on the left has dropped significantly.

From the same position, but swivelling to my left, ie downstream or facing east: you can see that there is now a clear space under the log, which was half submerged when we built the dam. This shows that the water has found a new level, which is by all accounts just above the level of the 'ole, which you can't see in the photo, as it's covered by reeds. The water has stopped dropping, and we are all extremely relieved that the water voles are safe, as it's not going to dry out completely. So that prediction was wrong! However, it's half term and we can only keep our fingers crossed that the local kiddies don't come down to play, and break the dam.

On my way back, I'm walking downstream ie eastwards, towards the footbridge and path leading up to the Stockham Park housing estate. I can't quite resist a couple of photos of this part, where we currently are not allowed to work.

May I bring to your attention the lovely green sludge (can't quite incorporate the truly "earthy" smell), the numerous rotting fallen boughs, the old shopping trolleys.....

This is the far eastern end of the canal, at the footbridge leading between the Crown Cork & Seal site and the Stockham Park housing estate. I am looking east towards the bridge - you can just see the horizontal wooden guard rail, just above the base of the fallen willow tree. As you can see, it's a complete mess, with broken trees and rubbish everywhere.

Ending now with a close-up of the very end of the canal, showing how unpleasant these water courses get when neglected. The water is stagnant (and on a hot day, smells of sewage, ugh) and full of obstacles, wire trolleys, old crates, dead wood and general rubbish, not to mention the thick sludgy build-up of duckweed. We'd very much like to tidy up this end of the Stockham section, get the water flowing properly again, and improve the wildlife habitats.

However, to do so we need a licence to work from the landowner, and so far we have not been able to make contact with him, as he refers all enquiries to his land agents, who just don't seem to want to talk to us. Oh well, we will persevere.... this end of the canal is very well-used, as you can see at any time by the amount of wear the towpath gets, so it's a shame to leave it un-managed.

Also, this footbridge allows access to local people working at Crown Cork & Seal, or at the Grove Industrial Park: it's a short cut that saves them making a long circuit out by the main road, and back into the industrial estate, and it probably allows quite a few people to travel on foot or by bycycle, instead of having to use a car or get a lift. So you can see that, even in this small way, the canal contributes to our "green-ness"!