Astrid unexpectedly found herself with an extra hour on her hands and as it was
a nice afternoon, she took another bucket of bulbs up to the cemetery and planted along the front edge of the pauper area near to the memorial.
There is still about a quarter of the bag left to do or approximately a couple of buckets left.
While there she noticed a lady putting poppies on the war graves, so she thanked her for her dedication.
Wednesday 14 November 2018
Astrid popped in briefly to plant some more bulbs by the Halesleigh Gate. She found that the Palmer memorial had been reapired by Fine Memorials, and looked excellent in the sun.
Sunday 18 November
Being a nice sunny day and after six weeks of ill health, Alan felt he was up to light duties in the cemetery today.
So, with only a few tools, Alan, Rita, Dave and Astrid met up to finish planting the remainder of the bulbs.
Miles and Astrid had done some sterling work in October as there were not many left to plant.
Astrid and Rita set off to finish planting, the hardest part was getting them out of the red string sacking!
Meanwhile Alan & Dave looked at the Creedy grave B82 which is next on the list for repair, the kerbs and posts have come apart and need cementing
back into position, plus one of the long kerbs had obviously come off before and has been replaced back to front. The grave has also sunk to one side
so needs to be levelled. Dave has already bagged up the stones from the centre of the grave ready for work to start, due to being unable to get to
the cemetery for a few weeks this may now have to wait until the Spring - unless we get another day like today!
Dave & Alan then gave the Palmer headstone a clean, Plan 7/42. This stone has recently been re-erected for the family, the large headstone previously
being laid down, this will take a couple more goes at cleaning but has come up very well for the first clean.
They then moved over to the Helps C11 to
give the top half of the headstone a clean. Again, a little more work needed here.
Not too much done today but it was nice to get back into the swing
of working again.
We were also heartened to see some touching wreaths laid out remembering the First World War. One from Chilton Trinity School was
on the memorial that remembers two soldiers, Walter Roman, a well-known England footballer killed at the Somme,
and Clifford Washer, who was killed in the trenches. Nearby a bunch of poppies was laid on the memorial
for Leslie Goodland, a soldier of the Somerset Light Infantry who died out in India.
Sunday 18 November
Alan, Rita & Dave in the cemetery today. All working in Section B. Alan chipped off the old cement on the loose kerbs and corner posts of the Upham B81grave until Dave arrived. Mixed up the cement and positioned the kerbs and posts back together, now fitting tight and snug up to the headstone which will give it more support. The stone chippings in the grave were raked back level and the tall large pot placed back into position. They said this took longer than expected (Maybe they were a bit out of practice!)
They then started work on the Creedy grave B82 which they talked about last week and set about seeing how they could raise the sunken side of the grave. After digging down to see if the landing was intact - which it was - they then levered and levelled up the sunken side with blocks and bricks. As lunch time was looming, they did not have time to cement the kerbs etc back into place, the stone chipping laid inside the grave was bagged up ready for washing. Two barrow loads of earth were laid on the sunken side to raise the ground level around the outside of the grave to smarten the appearance. The loose chipping between the kerbs were cleaned out and kerbs put back in position ready for cementing.
Meanwhile Rita was busy weeding graves nearby, Walford (79), Murch (71), Fletcher (63) Rookley (72) and cleared off ivy from Gray (31) Sheppard (39) and Baker (75).
Just as they were packing up to go home a lady visitor arrived, Alan and Rita gave her a tour of the cemetery.
