The warden left a note that there would be a pub quiz starting at 8 in the estate's social club, so we ate promptly - home made quiches, salads, french bread, before an advance party of four went off by car to enter the quiz. The last two walked over some time later, and watched - the quiz was well under way when they arrived but teams were strictly restricted to 4. Eventually we walked back in the dark leaving the car at the social club and relying on night sight rather than torches. This was a new experience for some of the volunteers - if their torches hadn't gone flat - I doubt if we could have persuaded them to keep them switched off - they were a little surprised when I got a torch out to find the keys!
After quite a late night, we started with breakfast including crispy (burnt?) bacon butties. We were ready on time, and met the Wardens. The task was coppicing willow along the lakeside where live willow matting had been used to control erosion. A secondary task was planting prunings in the gaps to reinforce the bank. Though we left that for Sunday morning as the ground was very hard and we needed a metal bar to make planting holes.I took a lift back to the base camp in the car left the night before as I had misjudged the depth at the edge of the lake and filled my wellingtons! P was more sensible and borrowed waders.
Dinner took a while to organise as everything was prepared from scratch a home made garlicy cheesy spread starter with salad and toasted french bread, herby bread crumb coated chicken breasts, with carrot, potato and cauliflower followed by strawberries and ice cream.We played some games and then went to bed a bit earlier than the previous night. We didn't get up as efficiently on the second morning and were running a little late when the wardens arrived. Perhaps the breakfast was too simple - croissants, toast, cereals etc!
We planted the prunings and then did a litter pick around the lake, before packing up, cleaning up the base camp and going home.
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