by Vinny, July 2009
Gulley-blocking in progress
When we met at the Marsden estate office Sandra produced an extensive selection of muffins, buns and oat biccies. Scarred by the recent Hardcastle bun heist – Issy insisted on carrying the buns, refusing to let them out of her sight. Rob, the Marsden warden, started with a talk covering history of the moor and task purpose –reduce peat erosion. At Buckstones, we took posts and tools from the van, and struggled over a broken stile. Rob then proceeded to lift out a fence post, and walk directly through!
Gulley blocking in action - one week later.
Photo: Rob, the warden.
Issy (& buns) strode out purposefully leading the group onto the moor but we eventually realised that she couldn’t possibly know where she was going. So we looked out West to see Rob waving as he marched off into the distance. On arrival at the worksite, Rob demonstrated his gully blocking technique, and then split us up into small teams. We worked tirelessly on through the blistering heat and could have worked for hours more, but unfortunately ran out of posts (& buns).
We decided that the remaining time would be best used reviewing the day’s progress in the pub. Jenny almost sat down to a pint of her favourite tipple – Boddingtons (she had asked Colin for pineapple but methinks he had peat in his ears). So on reflection – 10 volunteers, 1 work-experience lad, 1 warden and 1 dog, sustained by 30 moist buns, constructed 22 high-quality gully blocks!
