Thursday 30 April
Alan went in the cemetery today to cut a replacement missing kerb stone for the Toms J15 grave. This done, he then sorted out some new pad stones that were needed to enable the kerbs and the replacement short kerb to sit on, these were levelled in and the kerbs were placed in position. All now ready to be cemented together when next in the cemetery. Although it took several hours to carry out this work he was pleased with the result, this will make the job of cementing the kerbs back in place a lot easier as the kerbs now have a sound and level base to sit on.
Sunday 10 May
Unfortunately, as Alan was loading the car up to come to the cemetery, he noticed that he had a flat tyre caused by a large screw, so unable to get to the cemetery today.
Chris decided to go in and tidy up some the graves and dig up some of the numerous ant hills. He started first on the Stowell 6-32 grave where ivy and bramble had encroached over the headstone obscuring the leaded inscription.
He then moved over to the Winslade 7-15 a large double grave with kerbs and headstone, he tidied up the grave by removing the grass and weeds.
Chris then started work on the Greenslade/Durant grave 10-69 the Friends had worked on this grave a number of years ago as it was in a bad state, cementing the kerbs back together again and adding new chipping. Chris removed a nasty bramble that was growing out from one of the drainage holes in the centre of the grave. Next was the Gover graves 11-7 and 8, a pair of large solid tombstones where he removed bramble growing between the two graves and gave the area around the graves a general clean. He then moved over to the Symes 6-32 grave where he removed the weeds and brambles that had built up around the grave.
Chris back filled holes that had been dug up by the badger and managed to fill a full dumpy bag with the bramble and weeds he had cleared from the graves he had worked on.
He identified several trees where the base of the trees needs cutting back, this is something that needs to be tackled a little later in the year.
Astrid popped into the cemetery and had a chat with Chris and both took a photo of the large branch of the Redwood tree that has now drooped down to the ground due to splitting at the top.
