Tooly, mudly, deeply

A cold but beautifully sunny morning greeted a magnificent 7 GGers beside the river to lend their help to mending a damaged fence, for the Petersham Environment Trust.

Ken gave the instructions, which were unusually full of holes. The task was to dig a hole for a new post at one end of a short stretch of fence, and to dig a hole around the broken and rotten post at the other end to remove and replace it. We felt reverent, the (w)hole task was very holy indeed.

After collecting posts and rails from the sea scouts’ premises, Salwa and Rosie got going on the new hole at the top end. Cue much guffawing at hole related jokes - as well as steady progress with baby spades, the giant mascara wand and pac man on long handles.

At the other end of the fence, Suze, Chris and Divya were going at it hammer and pole to dig the rotten fence post out. The post was wider at the bottom and stuck deep in sticky soil, but they definitely made clay while the sun shined and after a gargantuan effort, be-holed! (de-holed?!), they proudly held it aloft.

There then followed a number of discussions about the physics of putting the fence together, which was made more difficult by the fact that posts and rails had come from different suppliers and did not align perfectly. But time was running out and team GG had been on de-fence for so long by then that Ken suggested wrapping up - he would come back and tackle the next phase in a couple of weeks.

The gang filled in the holes to ensure the new posts were secure, and took the remaining woodwork back to the scouts for safekeeping.

As much as we ‘dug’ the mission, no one was on the fence about going for coffee afterwards, so we headed off to enjoy the sunshine and views at Tide Tables :-)