Mud, glorious mud.

Last week we were doing some remedial work along a footpath, my report on that has been delayed. I've mentioned elsewhere that groups of people other than the County Council get involved in managing the countryside. There is a charitable organization which creates projects that benefit both people and the wider environment. Here in the Peak District, one of the things they do is to take people who have been convicted of anti-social offences out to do community service. One such group was tasked with building a boardwalk over a piece of boggy ground on a footpath.  Unfortunately, nobody looked at the spec., with the result that the completed work partially obstructed a gateway into a field.  Naturally the farmer was rather displeased! Our job was to take down the offending section, to build steps from the level of the remaining boardwalk to the ground (about 1.5 metres), and to replace the removed section with a paved path.

I wrote previously about a fencing job which had been the hardest physical day of work I had done in a long time. Well, this was worse!  The job was difficult partly because the constructing team had made a very robust job of it.  They used screws that were never meant to be unscrewed. Having removed the screws in the end by sheer brute force, and bolts holding it all together, the section to be taken away weighed a ton and required all four of us. Then, the posts to which all of it was attached were firmly stuck in the bog.  It was hard trying to get the posts out. If you tried to dig down, the hole quickly filled up again with mud. If you wiggled the post to loosen it, it was still very hard to shift because of the forces of suction.  Eventually it was a matter of using a crowbar to stir the mud in order to get enough air in to release the suction.  We put a bolt through the top of the post and levered the whole thing up. By the end of the de-construction,  I (and the tools) were covered in mud, . Not a good look!

When the unwanted structure was removed, I then set to work helping in laying some stones for the paved area across the bog.  We were using stones that were lying about (Derbyshire is full of stones!), many of which had to be crowbarred out of the ground.

All of this was hugely difficult and energy draining. Not for the first time did I thank my training regime. If it were not for that, I probably would have conked out half way through the morning. As it was, I lasted towards the end of the day, but by then I was so tired I could barely carry the tools back to the pickup.

Until now I have not been critical of the work that we do. But I thought today's job was utterly futile.  I couldn't help but think of the hard work put in by the team who constructed it in the first place.  A simple human error in this instance by the person in charge of that team led to probably a couple of days' worth of lost hours, which surely is not good in these times of straightened circumstances.

This week it is raining constantly, I have been told not to bother going in.