But it's a good kind of pain...

Today was a bit different. Aparently Her Majesty's Customs and Revenue (the former Inland Revenue merged with Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and my current employers for those who haven't been paying attention) run a volunteers day. My team decised to help Dundee City Council's Ranger Service. We envisaged maybe clearing up some litter and erecting some squirrel boxes. Not too much hassle. A break from the routine, fresh air and some easy, not too demanding physical tasks. Or so we thought.

The time was 9:30am, the palce was Trottick Mill Ponds. A former linen and jute mill's source of power allowed to become a nature reserve. Our job today was to assist the ranger in clearing out some of the channels that lead from the local river, the Dighty Burn, via the sluice gates to the ponds themselves. Thse channels had become silted up over the last year or so and if they weren't cleared would prevent the river from filling the ponds. The paths to the channels wouldn't support a small digger so enter us, stage left.

Waders on our legs (except for me, my feet are too big) and spades in hand we proceded to dig out the channels to their stone bottoms, removing a years accumulated silt and detritus. Yuck. It was nasty, messy, smelly hard work and it took is most of the day to shovel and shift the silt.

We did get a break from silt shovelling for an hour or so after lunch but that was only to pour and mix concrete to repair some vandalised nature information signs. More spade work. And after that? Silt! Yay.

At the end of the day, however, with our backs aching and hands blistering from the unaccustomed hard graft we surveyed what we had done with a muck covered, satisfied air. We opened the sluice gates and after a few moments the water ran free and clear. Huzzah. We felt good. We were in pain but we felt good.

Good job it's only once a year... I may come to like it otherwise...

Blogging on and off since January 2004.