Mostly good

Well, two out of three isn't bad…

Let's start with the serious positive, the great time we had with the volunteer group this morning. Having stocked up on the Boater's Breakfast at the Willow Tree, we foregathered at ten at the office, collected high vis tabards, long arm loppers, bow saws, black plastic sacks and litter pickers and were led to the work site by Stuart, the CRT volunteer co-ordinator.

He's a man with a lot of experience in woodland management, and had already marked up a selection of self sown saplings and branches on some of the other trees; before folk start panicking, he'd done it in consultation with the ecology adviser. The overall aim was to improve an area of scrubby wood between the canal and the railway line.

In the summer, in particular, it's popular both with folk looking for a picnic spot and those wanting somewhere for less salubrious activities; the aim is to open up the area, clearing away bits of scrub and raising the crowns of the remaining trees, thus improving sight lines and generally encouraging walkers to divert in and through it from the towpath. The hope is that greater general use will discourage the antisocial behaviour of the few.

The resulting cut wood was trimmed down, and the stouter bits stacked on the towpath for passing boaters to collect for firewood. The smaller stuff, the "brash", was piled into sinuous lines of "dead hedge", thus providing habitats for invertebrates, birds and small mammals.

We did a solid two hours at it, which was just enough for us ageing types, then trekked back to the marina to sign off and tidy up. Altogether, it was an excellent way to spend a morning, and a good omen for the future development of volunteer input to the new trust.

We'd had a bit of a fright before that, though; on her way out to get breakfast, Sheila noticed that the water tank gauge was reading absolutely empty. Since I'd filled the tank on Monday, and it would normally last most of a fortnight, this wasn't good. We had time before breakfast to check that we didn't have a catastrophic leak, which we didn't, the other positive of the day.

Between breakfast and going off scrub bashing, we started the tank refilling. The gauge didn't respond at all, so it's presumably died. After coming back from the woods, we filled the tank right up, and after lunch I checked everything a second time. No leaks, no loose connections, so it's definitely the gauge. A phone call is indicated  to that nice Mr Mason on Monday, methinks. He'll just be back from a week's hols in Egypt, so I'm sure he'll be glad to have a little problem to advise me on…

/no

At least this is the best place for it to happen; we can just keep topping up the tank once a week until we get the gauge sorted; it's almost certainly the sender, which is downstream of the main stop tap and above the pump, so it should be possible to swap it without too much water getting loose.