More dig

Should I not be working? Well, yes. But there is more to life. When there was a Sunday party going to our dig I decided to join. It will rest my mind and I will be fresh as a fiddle the next day! And it is very exciting.

This time it would be David, Edwyn and me. I drove up with David, met Edwyn in the cafe, and off we were. We bumped into our fellow Thursdaynighter Briony, who was about to lead a group of tourists into the mine. Too bad she couldn't join us!

When we got in we first went into Dig 1. There might be stuff to do that takes three. If Miles would appear and raise the number to four, we could always split up! We did some more hauling out of rubble; there was enough to go by. David was at the coal face, but he came out at some point. I then took his place. It became clear to me where all that rubble came from! I just struggled to get to it; the rod we had was only just long enough, when combined with my short arms. After a short while I came out to report on that. By then David suggested a bit more shoring up needed to be done. That was a two person job; in other words, my cue for skedaddling to the other dig.

I went in. The blasting last time was partially successful; not all rocks we wanted to get rid of were as demolished as I had hoped. But progress was clearly made! I started to try to lug out the big rock that had escaped my tidying tendencies the previous time. A chunk had come off, but it was still big! Almost too big. But I summoned all my stubbornness and pulled it towards me, inch by inch. And when it was far enough from the far wall I crawled over and tried to kick it from the other side. It worked! I got it to the entrance, but no way I could get it over the step. I left it there. Then I went back for an almost equally big rock that now could come out from the side; we were not going that way, but getting rid of it made the space a bit bigger and it can do with that. That rock ended up in the queue behind the other one.

The next rock up was slightly smaller so I managed to get that one out on my own. Then some more smaller rocks came out. I decided to clean out the far end of the dig as far as I could. Would help! That involved me working as a human bulldozer and shoving the lot to the entrance, and then throwing it over the edge. I then started to try to get rid of some rocks in the direction we were actually moving. Then I figured I was blocking my way out and cleaned everything out of the passage.

I then went back to the back of the dig, but after a while I saw light. Edwyn was visiting! He was looking for scaffolding, but I talked him into first helping me with the two large rocks. He thought it was madness. I argued that if I could single-handedly get them to the squeeze, then surely we could get them properly out with the two of us. And we managed it!

By then David had been waiting too long for his scaff and showed up too. They took the bar that was lying around and left. I spent a bit more time trying to get rid of pendant rubble, but after a while I had had enough. I was a bit battered after all the hard work! I went to go and have a look at what the men had done. And they had done some stirling shoring-up work! I was impressed. But it was time to go. Almost!

David wanted to try out some enormous drill bit Mick had customised to his drill, so we fired up the generator and he gave it a go. It was a bit jumpy but it worked! Good to know. Then we were done and started to pack up. Then a light appeared! Miles had come after all. We had given up on him by now. We reported back on the progress in both digs, and then we each went our way. I hoped Miles would formulate a clear plan of how to proceed! The dig was at a bit of a crossroads...