Wednesday 18 May 2011

Nidderdale AONB Website link

Just a quick note to say that today Nidderdale AONB have included a link from the walling section of their website to our Blog, we also feature in the news!  A big thanks to Leanne at the AONB for making this happen for us.  Whilst you are here check out this link to go to the site, lots of good stuff on there including events upcoming in the AONB this year.

Em

Walling at North Stainley 18th May

Greetings from the now sunny Pateley Bridge!  Finally I have been back walling again this week after my prolonged absence it was good to get back and feel the stone on my fingers, grit in my hair, rain down my neck etc etc.

Despite the dire look of the clouds above the rain held off at North Stainley and the promised sun did finally put in an appearance at the end of the day.

We had another good turnout again this week, the willing volunteers being:
Emma W, Richard (younger), Graham B, Graham D, Paul, David, Emma WP and Chris.  Oh and Martin (sorry Martin!)

We split up into teams with M n M tackling the first lunky and curve, Martin and Richard shoring up the seat for Camilla, Graham and Graham working up to the stile, Paul working 2nd lunky and final curve and David allocating and moving the first course of the semi circle wall.
Chris spread his talents amongst us all helping where needed and Richard from the village arrived just before lunch time to help split the monster stones ready for Davids first course next week.

Everyone got stuck in today and made good progress, especially Paul who raised his section of wall by 3 courses today, no small accomplishment!  Whatever he had for breakfast today we all want some!

The evidence of our hard work is below, it's really taking shape at North Stainley now and the features are starting to look part of the wall.

See you next week, Em





A seat fit for a Queen!

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Walling at North Stainley - 11th May 2011

Now here's a first!  A tentative toe in the blogospheric water by your frankly-we-were-better-off-with-carrier-pigeons chairman.  Having listened while Emma patiently explained how one bloggeth, I promptly forgot and had to ask for a refresher this morning.  Suitably refreshed, here goes (before another senior moment kicks in)!
Thanks to Catriona, Em II, Richard, Paul, Graham, Phillip and Roger (and Jenny from the village) for another sterling day's work.  Commiserations to Em I who had managed to contract one of those rater nasty there's-a-lot-of-it-about bugs and wasn't able to join us in completing the foundation for the curved wall.

    It didn't seem that far when we set off ...

The rest of the gang pressed on with the main wall from the stile through to the final wiggle.  We're getting some height on now and the features are beginning to look the part with each of the lunky holes having a 'roof'.
Next week we can start using up the remaining 'big stuff' in the first course of the new wall and then that's about it really ... um, well perhaps not!  A plea to everyone - we're still short of coping stones; please keep pulling them out as you go and don't wall them all in just 'cos it's nice to cover 12" with one stone.

The question that keeps arising is ... will we have enough stone?  The only clever answer I've had so far is 'yes, but not necessarily of the right sort!' 

See you next week.

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Walling at North Stainley 4th May

My triumphant return to walling appears to have been cut short by illness again this week - GRRR!

But we had another good turnout this week with the brave attendees allocated stone sorting to get the site tidied up.

The intrepid few were:
Chris, Catriona, Emma W, Graham B, Graham D, Paul and Richard.

There is never much to report from a good sorting but it's important work and will ensure that next week we find it easier to find stone and crack ahead with the fun stuff.

See you next week, Em



Walling at North Stainley 27th April 2011

Now (most of) the Bank Holidays are over I am back to walling again this week - hooray!

This week we had another great turnout from our dedicated team plus the additional bonus of extra help from the wonderful people at Byzac who were giving back by assisting with the North Stainley Community Garden Project.
This week we were joined by:

Chris, Paul, Emma, Emma (II), Tony, Graham, Phillip and Richard H.

The day was fraught with activity, we split into three teams, tackling the foundations of the semi circle wall, the wall end and the straight section with the stile and lunky hole.

With the extra help we made some good progress getting the height of the wall up by a couple of courses and some clearance work on Lavender Lane, another part of the North Stainley Project.

See you next week, Em

Coffee Break!

Byzac Volunteers

Beautiful Foundations

Byzac Volunteers get stuck in

Cracking Curves!

Walling at North Stainley 20th April 2011

Still no walling for me this week :-(  but I have it on good authority that a fine team turned out for the remarkably warm spring weather.

This week North Stainley was graced by Chris, Catriona, Elaine, David, Emma W, Richard, Richard H, Robert, Graham and Philip.