Business as usual while water levels are high. 18th January 2020

Inert and Co. have continued to work on building up spoil between the bailey bridge and pump, and on the land mass.  Progress appears slow but steady. No apparent effort to get this restoration over and done with.

Now, I could be slighting Cemex, and progress is proceeding as fast as weather, ground and resource conditions allow. There could be any number of reasons for the apparent slow progress on Manor farm. I've mentioned several throughout this blog. However, I do know that a lot of people (i.e. residents) are getting fed up with how long this is taking. Plus it is a community resource which people want to get on and use. We can but wait and see.

Speaking of ground conditions. They are pretty bad, what with all this rain. Lorries have to proceed quite slowly, one would say gingerly. Whereas before, when the area was dry, they could belt along at a fair lick. Soil, stones, chalk etc have been ground into a fine powder, which when mixed with water turns into a sludge the consistency of wallpaper paste. And the stuff is deep in places, filling troughs the lorries have gouged out in the various vehicle tracks.

Walking about the site, particularly the land mass, was somewhat fraught at times. Much careful placing of feet, and slowly putting weight onto it to check how firm the ground was. I had to back track several times to avoid sinking up to my knees in the stuff. Dragging yourself out of clingy mud, with several hundred pounds of quite bulky camera equipment around your neck is not good.

For the first time in months, I made it onto my mighty mound.  The mound itself is quite consolidated. The problem was getting to it and then getting away from it. Approaching it from the north proved relatively easy, as I stepped into vehicle tracks. I prefer lorry tracks, they consolidate the ground better. The bulldozer, with its wide caterpillar tracks, has a light footprint which doesn't consolidate the ground.  I attempted to get off my mighty mound on its south side, and stepping onto the vehicle track. This didn't work as planned. The very last two steps were impossible to accomplish as the mud was so deep and gooey. I had to work my way back to the north side of the hill, and retrace my steps across the land mass.  The things I do for this blog!

There was plenty of standing water about on the former Finch pond part of Manor farm. An indication of the area's predilection to flooding. Now, it is possible that the water levels over the past week are higher than would be expected when restoration is complete. When the traget levels are reached, the standing water will be a thing of the past. I remain to be convinced. Water levels have receded considerably, but the standing water (i.e. large puddles to thee and thou) still remain.

This week's challenge appears to be ice. My trail cam, which I put out, claims the temperature dropped to -10C,  on Sunday morning.  I'm not sure of that, and have put a regular thermometer  out to verify.  I was certainly breaking ice about 5mm thick as I walked through puddles on Saturday morning.