Gate across south footpath completely smashed. Glacial progress. 21st March 2020

Before we kick off this week's somewhat tedious report, a bit of good news and bad news on my attempts at art.

Good new: Aquadango has been short listed for the David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year exhibition. My painting, along with roughly 100 other art works,  was selected from over 1,200 entries. Category winners will be chosen from the short listed pieces, and all can exhibit at the Mall galleries, London.

Bad news: Exhibition dates run from 27th to 31st May, 2020.  Oops. Unlikely due to a naughty little virus.

Back to the blog. Inert still have a single track road, which requires lorries to reverse some 100m to drop their loads.  Only six lorries queuing up to cross the bailey bridge on Wednesday.

I suppose I should have paid a site visit on Saturday to see where all the soil is being pushed.  Our bulldozer driver is making a mighty pile of soil, but I never see him push the stuff very far north i.e. towards Cormorant lake (south).  It must be going somewhere.  I might visit next weekend.

The single track road is pretty lethal. I would have thought the ground would have dried out by now.  It is very slippery, with some enormous potholes. Lorries have to drive very slowly and carefully along the track - increasing the time for queuing lorries and the time it is taking to complete restoration.

I have a photo of a lorry negotiating a pothole.  I have no idea why it isn't filled in with a large lump of concrete or lots of 100mm ballast. There is enough of it lying around. It would make the lorry drivers' lives easier.

Oh, a couple or three weeks ago, I posted photographs of the east most gate across the footpath by the bailey bridge. It showed the gate somewhat dented after being hit by a lorry. Due in main to walkers unable to close the gates properly. It isn't difficult, but you would be amazed at the number of times I've found the gates either left open or not closed properly.

Last week the west gate across the footpath had taken a severe knock from a lorry, and the gate post (a fairly major block of wood) had been broken, though not so much that the gate couldn't function as a gate.  This week, my Wednesday stomp revealed the gate on its side, with the post completely sheared off.

It was inevitable, but simply down to stupid walkers unable to grasp the mechanics of closing a gate.

There was a digger working on the south vehicle track, next to where the bulldozer was operating. No idea what it was doing, except one of the random pieces of work Inert get up to; which do not seem to serve any real purpose except waste time.

Oh, the pump still isn't running but water levels are low in the lakes. I need to pop over to find out why. I do not think Cormorant lake (south) has been joined with Manor lake, with water somehow flowing out of the latter into the Blackwater. Simply due to Manor lake being higher than Cormorant lake.