This weekend saw the completion of our first beginners' training course at the new training facility at the Scottish Lime Centre, with the wall looking good, and both trainers and trainees looking justifiably happy with it.

Thanks to Stevie for the photo, once again.

And sure enough, CSB have now finished the wall:

Slight shortage of stone means there are some turf copes, but this is fine - just adds another element to the training (how to cope if you don't have enough copes ...).

Thanks to Kate Armstrong for the photo.

For a number of years we've discussed setting up a dedicated training and practice site, and now we have one, courtesy of the Scottish Lime Centre at Charlestown in Fife (www.scotlime.org/). We're sharing the site with the Central Scotland Branch of the DSWA (CSB), as they also felt they could use a dedicated site (and furthermore, Fife is really their patch).

​We're planning on holding our first training course there later this month, and to that end we need a section of wall long enough for the trainees to work on socially distanced. So earlier in the year several tons of stone were delivered, and now that the COVID restrictions have been lifted a bit, a few volunteers were able this weekend to go along and do some work on this.

Some CSB volunteers had already been along earlier in the week (we have to take turns, as we're restricted to six people on site at a time), so our guys picked up where they left off- thanks to Stevie Gordon for the photos.

I think CSB are heading back later this week to finish off, so the wall should be ready for our first training course.