Today we went to Torduff and Harlaw, in the Pentland Hills Regional Park (check 'em out at pentlandhills.org), to carry out some repairs to the walls there - John, Alan, Pete, Thoren, myself and Coolie the dog. We started at Torduff, leaving most of the cars at the bottom of the hill as the road isn't open to public vehicles beyond the start of the reservoir and there isn't much space for parking there (to be fully accurate, I took my car up with the equipment (and Thoren) and the others all walked). Happily, the gate was open (perhaps left so for us by the rangers) and so I was able to drive right up to the build site.

Last year (see 7th May 2013 blog entry) we'd started, but not completed, a rebuild of a wall which had been knocked down by a nearby tree, so our first task was to complete this section.

The cope here is mortared, due to its being in a public spot. This, however, has its drawbacks (technical dyking bit here) as the fixedness of the cope means that it won't be weighing down the stones beneath it for all of its length, which in turn means that they (the under-stones) can come loose and (eventually) fall out of the wall. This is what had happened a few yards down the wall.

The cope had been petty well mortared - it took quite a bit of smacking it with Alan's new muckle hammer before it came away.

As you can see in the photos, it was a lovely morning (though cold - there was fresh snow on some of the higher ground). John and I rebuilt the place where the hole had been

while the others built the other section up to cope height.

At about 11.30, a couple of the park rangers showed up in their big white pickup. It seemed there had been a bit of a crossed wire, and they'd been waiting for us at Harlaw (oops). They were very nice about it though, and insisted they'd had plenty of stuff to do while they were waiting. They'd brought some sand and water for us, which (I expect) was another crossed wire (sand and cement, and water, perhaps) but once we'd sorted out what was actually required they very kindly agreed to go and fetch some premixed mortar for us. Meanwhile we got the copes on

and ate our packed lunches, admiring our handiwork and the view down the reservoir beyond.

From the vantage point of where he was eating his lunch, Alan noticed that the bit where the hole had been didn't look quite right ... we'd put a large cover stone (a flat stone which goes the whole width of the wall) on beneath the copes, and it was too near the top of the wall meaning that we'd had to use smaller stones for the copes above it. So we took it out and replaced a bit lower down with bigger copes on top of it.

The rangers came back with the mortar, but after some discussion we decided not to use it - the copes were big enough to stay on unless some very determined effort was made to remove them, and we didn't feel that many vandals of that level of determination would venture this far into the hills. However, we thought we might need it at Harlaw (this being a more easily accessible spot) so we loaded it plus a big container of water into my car. We all then managed to squeeze into the car too, and headed back down the hill to pick up the other vehicles, where we formed a convoy behind Alan (as the only one who knew the way) up to Harlaw.

There were three places at Harlaw car park in need of attention: one where the wall of the car park had been bashed (and which the rangers had very kindly coned off for us while they were waiting for us to arrive):

One corner by a field entrance (also probably bashed):

And a small section by the road up (which, thinking about it, might also have been bashed, for even though there are signs prohibiting parking on this side of the road people do park on the other side making the road very narrow for vehicles going to and from the car park proper):

All of these repairs were small, so in not much more than an hour we'd put them all back to rights.

The rangers showed up again just as we finished, and once again after some discussion it was decided not to mortar the copes. So we gave them back the water (they let us keep the mortar to use next time) and helped them pack up their cones. John and Coolie set off to enjoy the park, and the rest of us headed home.

Last July (see 27/7/2013 post) we built a dry stone raised bed for Belhaven Community Garden. Since then, they've had properly made wheelchair-accessible paths put in - which are great, but reduced the raised-ness of our bed by about six inches. And as the main reason for raising the bed was to have plants at a good level for wheelchair users to be able to appreciate them, they asked if we'd mind popping back and putting another course on.

One of their gardeners had had a go at it, but he wasn't one of the ones who'd been on the course, and it really was just some stones (and a piece of wood, perhaps meant as a seat) placed on the top of the wall. It still looked quite nice, but perhaps more rockery than dry stone wall.

It wasn't really a big enough job to justify getting the whole branch out, and as I live nearby, and as it was a lovely morning (cold, but bright and sunny), and as the rest of my family were going to help with planting in the garden anyway (all volunteers welcome, between 10.30 and 1.30 every Sunday), I decided to have a crack at it myself (I did text the other branch member who lives locally, but he didn't get my message until too late).

First thing was to take off the new stones, and then remove and set aside the original top 'cope' course of large flat stones, to be replaced after the wall beneath had been made a bit taller.

And then I just had to put it all back again, with another barrowload or two of stone added in ...
After lunch it clouded over a bit, but the rain stayed off, and by about four o'clock I'd got the new course in and replaced the copes.

And the sun even came out again, right at the end.