Saturday 1st March

It was the second successive Saturday of fine weather, and 6 members gathered at M&FM for the day's activities. Ian R and Graham set off on the line inspection to Alton, while Adrian, Keith B, Keith H, and Eddie headed to the Pway hut site at Alresford via Ropley, where a tree had been reported to be down on the Alresford section.

A walk out to Northside Lane a quarter of a mile out of Ropley revealed no signs of the fallen tree, so Adrian and Eddie returned to Ropley to head to Alresford with the van, while the two Keiths, armed with a chainsaw and hammer and spanner carried on walking towards Alresford in search of the tree.

At the Pway hut site Eddie and Adrian started the first couple of tasks, measuring and cutting up sleepers for the seating, and reducing ground levels in the front of the door to enable the threshold and external paving to be progressed. By 10am the two Keiths arrived, having eventually come across and cut up the fallen tree in the cutting at Bishops Sutton, and started to tidy up the site and build a fire for burning in a couple of weeks time. Eddie and Adrian meanwhile, having completed their initial tasks, finished off the laying of the concrete slab floor.

Following the usual walk into Alresford for refreshments, where the opportunity was also taken to inspect the track and give the pointwork its weekly dose of oil, they were joined in the early afternoon by the two line walkers and Paul C, Neil, and Martin R.

The very productive day continued, with infill timbers above the window and door cut and fixed into position by Keith H and Adrian, and timber fascias fitted between the underside of the roof sleepers and wall sleepers by Graham and Ian (who also managed to make a start cutting and fixing the vertical timber cover strips over the sleeper joints). 

Eddie, Martin, and Adrian installed the seating, and Neil and Paul cast a foundation and laid a course of bricks below the door threshold, pointed in the gaps to the floor edges next to the door and fireplace, and completed the fireplace hearth with in-laid bricks. 

Keith B continued with his tidying up of the ballast shoulder to the track adjacent to the site, with a brief interlude to fix a hurricane lamp inside the hut, while Keith H re-started bank clearance work with Martin helping to clear away the cut material.

There will be a slight interruption to the work for a fortnight, as next week we will be carrying out maintenance and roof repairs on the hut completed last year. It is also the Spring Gala weekend, so there will be a degree of 'gricing' going on.