Only Dave, Alan and Rita daft enough to go in the cemetery today (16 July 2023) when the forecast was rain, but they only had to shelter twice for two short showers to pass over so luck was on their side.
Rita was given the task of scrubbing the top half of the Ashton 7-58 headstone that needed to be cleaned up to try and match the bottom half. She was given a brush the size of a toothbrush! But there was a good reason for this as there were lead letters that had to be cleaned around so not to damage them and a fair bit of fancy carved flowers where there were lots of crevices to go into. She made a reasonable job for a first time clean but will need a second clean at some stage.
Alan and Dave were working nearby on the 7-56 Hooker and 7-62 Morris graves that had all but disappeared under the grass. These were cleaned up, all the grass growing in the centre dug up and the stones underneath given a brush up. A kerb on the Hooker grave had been hit at sometime and a piece broken off, this was cemented back into position. A good job done by the boys. The Morris end kerb has also been hit and needs to be repaired.
They then moved over to the 7-57 Staples grave that had a long kerb that had fallen over, with a little levering and packing this was put back into position.
Rita in the meantime moved over to the nearby trees which had young Elder shoots and holly sapling growing around them, these were cut down and bagged up.
Another big thank you to Somerset Council for emptying the many bags of debris we had accumulated over the last month or so, all nice and tidy in the dumping area – for a while at least!