Chris, Dave, Alan and Rita working in the cemetery today (12 January 2025), thankfully the temperature is rising after the last week of hard frost and today the sun is shining. Although pretty muddy underfoot.
Today’s task is to pick up what we can of the branches and twigs that have fallen to the ground in the last lot of high winds, our first proper working session this year.
Starting at the front of the cemetery, the team set too and soon had this pretty clear with 1 ½ dumpy bags filled.
The team then moved to the far end of the cemetery where the dumpy bags are stored and a lovely surprise, we found the Town Council boys had been in and emptied all the full ones, they must have noticed these when they came to pick up the rubbish left from our unwanted squatters who left an awful mess behind them. So thank you Town Council.
The team then set about picking up branches, twigs and two bags of litter that had been thrown over the wall! Alan got busy sawing the smaller branches off one of the very large branches brought down by the wind, just to tidy up the area. Altogether they filled 6 dumpy bags of fallen debris from the trees. There are also a lot of low hanging branches that need to be trimmed but they will be dealt with later.
After a tea break surprisingly ordered by Alan (he usually likes to keep going), we then moved over where the large fir tree had fallen on the boundary of Provident Place. Some friends of Chris kindly removed the sawn up logs of the tree, just the bottom part left of the tree remaining which is tangled up in the chain link fence, all this needs to be removed. Once this is done it is planned to return the kerbs of the Hodge grave back in position.
Alan and Chris spent a good while digging away the earth away from some of the tree roots, they still have a bit more to do but hope it helps the Somerset and Town Council as they will be unable to cut the roots if they are covered in earth.
The team were doing a lot of huffing and puffing, probably overdoing it over the Christmas, they certainly needed the workout today!