First job of the day: on with the wellies, and the jumpers, and the coats, and the waterproof trousers: yes folks, it may be August but it's cold, windy, and threatening to rain.
Today I completely failed to bring my camera along, so all the pictures today are courtesy of Alistair, and of Doug. Thanks, guys.
Today we are working on the far side of the cut, with thanks to the landowners, who run an equestrian centre specialising in breeding Suffolk Punch and Welsh Section D horses.
Here we are, staggering across the field in the teeth of a howling gale, carrying our nosebags and our folding chairs. Yes, long gone are the days of sitting on the grass...
At the last work party, a run of posts was erected to make an access strip for the dredging machinery, so that work would not interfere with the horses' use of that field.
Our job today was to attach the pig fencing (thought it was sheep fencing myself, but I'm not an expert) to the posts.
There's Mike in the distance, unrolling the wire, while Jim is standing firmly on this end of it.
Bob measures out some lengths of baler twine for temporarily holding the pig wire in place, while Jim and Roy watch in some bemusement.
Roy's anxious that we don't use unnecessarily long bits of twine, while Jim is wondering if it's actually long enough to go round a post and still tie a nice bow.
Vic checks out the back of Roy's van, to see if there is anything edible in it.
Oh dear. Who put this post brace up?
There's no "notch" in it!
Don't let Martin see it, whatever you do, he'll tell us off!!
Well, just look at this hive of industry.
From the left, Mike, Jim, me, John Mills and Bob all working in tandem to get the wire nice and taught, then attached firmly.
Jim and I are doing the tricky overlap, where the two rolls of wire are going to be joined together. (Duuh! That's what "overlap" generally means...)
Jim showing good technique: How To Hammer Without Losing One's Hat.
Not as easy as it sounds!
What's this - has Vic found something edible?
No, he's maniacally chopping trees down again.
The piles of earth, by the way, are not enormous moles, but are the result of the contractors installing field drains, to reduce the bogginess of the fields adjacent to the canal. One of the few jobs where we have to bring in paid contractors instead of doing it ourselves.
Doug indicating just how near he was to the electric fence, while I tidy up the bits of baling twine that were holding up the pig wire. I'm sure that we'll be using them again, one day.
Malcy joining in with the staple-hammering.
You can see he's not quite as secure in his hat-holding capacity, so he's using the Pig Wire Crouch rather than the Ballantyne Bend.
Mike appears to be hammering his own hand onto the fence post, but I think he was actually removing the old nails so that they could be straightened and used again.
Here's Bob, wearing his Captain Birdseye hat, overseeing his merry crew.
Well, we take a bit of looking after - just ask Roy! At any moment there are likely to be outbreaks of giggling, frivolous behaviour, and general mischief.
At this point, six of us were trying to work out if the electric fence was actually on, or not, with no-one being willing to just touch the darned thing.
Chinnor John recommended the "blade of grass" trick, with no result; Malcy said if you were wearing gloves you could just about feel it but not enough to make you jump; Doug - who, by the way, doesn't believe in evolution - said that even though I was (eventually) holding it without harm, it was because I was wearing rubber boots and wasn't properly grounded.
This went on for some time, until we eventually decided that it really, really, wasn't on. No wonder Bob is looking at us in bemusement...
Five blokes (counting me as one) stood around watching one bloke with a hammer... ah, the true workparty spirit is still with us.
Up goes the final rail, re-using those old nails that Mike carefully removed earlier.
As you can see, we're all fully wrapped up in hats and coats by now, as it's raining again.
Chinnor John selects a stick for Jensen to chase.
John, that might be a bit big for him....
Tea break in the rain!
Roy and Bob - The Management - shelter in the van for tea and a bun, while the rest of us - The Workers - sit on the other side of the pig wire.
Flasks are produced all round, and we're jolly glad of a hot drink. This is the time for cake bargains to be compared: Malcy has a bag of organic pears for 20p, which, although not strictly speaking a cake, is indeed a bargain. Alistair has smarties, and has to defend them vigorously.
It's a short tea-break, as it's too cold to sit around for long, so we get on with the next task.
Bob has noticed that the fence around a small copse of trees in the middle of the field has been broken - possibly by Alice, the big Suffolk Punch, leaning on it.
We remove the broken rail, and Roy notices that the middle fence posts are also broken. Runners are sent over to the big barn for two replacement posts, and a new top rail.
"Hmmm," says Mike, "now which way round does this hammer thing work?"
"Stand aside," says Roy, "I'll show you how it's done."
In moments, the new posts are in, and the new rail is secured.
Seven blokes (counting me, behind Jim, as one) stood around watching one bloke with a bowsaw.....
Mind you, we were out of the wind, which was nice, as it was raining again.
"Aaaar," says Roy, "that's better."
Praise is heaped upon us for doing a good job - well, Bob looks sideways at it and says "well I suppose that'll do, right you lot, get into the Cut." and we all troop off across the field for the next exciting job.
So here we are, back in the Cut, at the point opposite the mole hills, with instructions to bash the scrub down.
We are going to install some piping to carry the trickle of water along the Cut, covering it over with earth to make a temporary causeway for machinery access. We have some fairly major work to do in this area: we will be building a spillway, with pipework underneath to take the water from the field drains away.
There is a drainage ditch running across the canal at right angles, so the field drains will go into that ditch and away, while the canal will then be "in water" (as we say) all the way from the road, down past the Wharf, and right to the end of this section.
This is one of the two sections of pipe that will be going under our causeway.
There is a slight suggestion of "overkill" in the size of the pipe, bearing in mind that the water is currently a tiny trickle... and it's been raining all week.... but it's better to have too large a pipe than too small a pipe.
And we happen to have these bits of pipe just lying around doing nothing....
Mike looks speculatively at the rope and the fence posts that are going to help us move the heavy pipes.
OK, this is progress, but guys, I hate to criticise, but shouldn't you both be facing the same direction?
That's better! Mike, Malcy, Roy and Jim pretend to be pall-bearers, and heave the pipe along the towpath from the Wharf, with frequent stops for puffing and panting.
No, hang on, Jim was with me, scrub bashing, it was Alistair who got nettle-stings on his knees all the way along the towpath. Oops, Jim is a ringer!
Lo! and behold, here's the other section of pipe, being rolled by Bob all by himself!
And he seems to be rather less out of breath than the four pall-bearers were, so rolling would seem to be a more efficient way of moving pipe sections.
As long as they are short enough to fit across the towpath, that is!
There was a suggestion that it might have been more sensible to send Bob ahead with his section, to flatten down all the nettles so they wouldn't have been stinging Alistair's knees....but it was agreed that it was more fun to listen to the yelps.
Under the general heading of "no rest for the wicked", Bob takes us back up to the Wharf to collect a pile of blocks, so that we can raise the level of our current end-damn.
The small trickle of water will take some time to increase the Wharf section by the height of one course of blocks, which will give the down-stream section (where we are putting in our pipe) time to dry out somewhat.
This should make it easier to install the pipe, and build the causeway.
Jim, Malcy and I get started on laying a course of blocks, using mud as mortar.
This is somewhat precarious work, as the downstream side - on the left in this pic - is slippery in the extreme, and the upstream side is at least three feet deep....
We have to "puddle in" the clay as we go, which means stomping it down with our feet to make a watertight matrix of particles, instead of a lumpy mass that would be washed away by the first fall of rain. This is a bit tricky, as we have to build up a layer on the upstream side, without falling in...
Seen from the other bank, here we are making good progress along the dam.
Roy and Bob look down from above, to make sure that we are doing it right, and are being careful.
I assure them that we are all being extremely careful - particularly me, as I'm the one balancing on the newly-laid blocks.
Jim confirms that we're all being careful.
His back can only take so much heavy lifting, and the sticky clay weighs a ton, so Alistair comes in to give him a rest.
Malcy and I smooth down our finished work, and clean off the top edge as best we can.
We have to strike a balance between doing a good job, and not making it too inviting for kiddies to try to walk along it: technically this is all on private land, but you know what kids are like!
Well, having done the dam, we are done for the day, as it's still raining.
Mike and I replace the fence to the private section.
Bob cleans up the shovels - ha, he should have seen them before WE cleaned them up! - in preparation for loading the van and departing, while Roy looks on and counts the tools, to make sure we haven't forgotten any of them. (As if we would!)
So we head back across the fields, out of the drive, and back along the road to the Wharf where we are parked.
You can see that it's still raining, it's a grey miserable day and we're all glad that we've decided to stop at 2.30.
Back at the car park, up go the tailgates, off come the wellies, and we pack ourselves back in our cars and go home.
And finally, thanks again to Alistair, for sending me a couple of hundred photos of the day, from which I managed to select these ones: luckily I'm very good at pruning!
Thanks to Doug for this one: I felt it was a bit unfair that Alistair wasn't in any of his own photos - obviously - so here he is, relaxing at tea break, wishing that he'd remember to bring his folding chair so that he wouldn't have to sit on Beryl's muddy tracks, and although he's smiling, he's getting ready to defend those smarties....