25th October 2018
With Alex, Nick,
Jonathon, Mike, Duncan and David Walker (curator at the Wells & Mendip
Museum and MCRA)
At the sand dig we were
relieved to see it had dried-up and quite quickly after the fill event by the
look of it. I started to dig in the [dry] alcove, because I got there first,
Alex reduced a limestone boulder in size and removed the slop from the lowest
point of the dig. The spoil management team were not impressed with the slop
and were experiencing some difficulty in extricating it from the bucket. The
solution, they decided, was to put a couple of handfuls of drier sediment into
the bucket first, the diggers, of course, complied with this instruction.
Nick was on the steps
passing the filled buckets to David, loading the skip to the spoil management
team comprising Jon, Mike and Duncan.
When Alex had removed the
slop, he turned his attention to clearing the loose sediment that I was
creating in the alcove. The buckets started to move freely at a good constant
rate. There are some very interesting layers of deposition to look at in the
sediment bank, these can become, somewhat, of a distraction. Flood events and
subsequent drying periods can be clearly distinguished.
All too soon it was time
to stop digging, clear the loose, stash the tools at a safe height and make our
way out of the cave. Changed in the car park and up to the Hunter’s for well-earned
refreshments.
