Ty - Powder Working Party

Present: Iain and Pam McCallum, Virginia and John Castick, Frank and Margaret Williams, Dave Wylie, Alan Wylie, Lester Payne, John Evans, James Richardson, Dave Dillon, Andrew Croughton, Bob Anderson, Chris Thickett.

 

Guess what? Another very successful working meet despite the meet leader getting his weather mixed up. And despite him turning up to organise the events.

The sunny Saturday enabled all the outside jobs to be completed in the day. In the morning a road gang under the foremanship of Andrew repaired the track and altered the surface drainage near the black gate. Lester set about pointing up the car park walls after breathing life into the old concrete mixer. Frank fixed the leaking gutters to the front of the building.

The wall menders all get a special mention. Dave D and Andrew are awarded high marks for their skill and John E and James for artistic impression. All their hard work, and that of John C who strimmed the whole of the mountainside, left our property looking remarkably smart. We'll be winning awards next! Iain also got into the act repairing a section of the boundary wall.

The Wylie brothers set about solving a blocked drain under the track with their hi-tech expertise. This resulted in abject failure and they eventually succeeded with some lo-tech dig and thrutch that saw them finish after 9 o'clock. Dave W had earlier fixed the sticking door between the two lower dormitories. Virginia varnished all bare wood and anything else that did not move.

The big job inside was the plaster repairs to the wall of the upper dormitory which had been damaged by water leaking in. This was undertaken by Uncle Bob who discovered this leak was caused by some shoddy workmanship way back in 1879. Anybody seen the guarantee? He spent the day repairing the deep holes in the slate wall and then sealing the corresponding gable wall on the outside of the building.

Iain and Pam provided us with an appetising lunch and tea breaks. Pam and Margaret organised the distribution of the new bedding articles and undertook many specific cleaning and washing jobs.

On Sunday nearly everybody went out on the hill walking or climbing although heavy showers made conditions more unpleasant than Saturday. Climbers had to head out to the west to dodge the rain. Only Iain, Pam and Lester stayed at the hut to clean windows and carry out tree maintenance, etc. On returning to the hut, Bob spent a long evening putting on a couple of coats of plaster to the repairs upstairs.

On Monday morning Bob completed the final plaster skim before another sunny day saw us enjoying four interesting although not very strenuous routes on the slabs of Little Tryfan.

Thanks to all the workers for their hard work, enthusiasm and companionship.

Chris Thickett