Doh! Here we go
again.
So
how do you choose a President? Well in the case of the Red Rose it’s who can
afford to go to prison. Well me! The first time was over our pending doom over not
complying with Water Regulations. I was willing to have free board and lodgings
courtesy of Her Majesty as our water supply was well below the statutory
requirements. Hence the frantic digging of a new water pipe, fencing off of our
storage tank and lots of ditching and fencing and cleaning of our catchment
spring. Then there was the filtering and UV treatment. Eventually the ‘man from
the council’ was happy with us, actually it was a nice woman but that’s another
story.
Anyway,
fast forward three years and our fire alarm started playing up, or should I say
made a lot of noise every time it was switched on. Oops! So realising this was
not a good thing I called in the expert, a Fire and Rescue specialist. Error!
As I was yet again the responsible person liable for prosecution should
anything go wrong. Bigger Oops! ah well I guess three square meals a day in a
minimum security prison might not be so bad after all at least it would get me
away from the Ingleton Grumposium in Bernies every
day.
After
fixing the flapping gas pipe in the cellar back onto the wall, rather than it
acting as a shelf for people to pile nefarious objects upon, I breathed slight
sigh of relief. I now had only ten more serious fire safety infringements to
rectify. Next visit to the farm I enclosed the heater for the frying room
behind a sturdy grill to stop numpties from setting
fire to their socks by hanging on the heater. Then fitted three smoke alarms to
warn the morons who had set the farm on fire that the farm was in fact ON FIRE!
As the fire alarm system had
catastrophically failed to do the job. The I repositioned the Fire Blankets so
they were near the doors to the kitchens, sensible as you don’t want to walk to
the other side of a room with a blazing frying pan blocking your exit, why
didn’t we think of that in the first place, ‘cos
we’re thick! Finally I removed all the combustibles from within easy sparking
distance from both fires as that’s probably not a good place to keep them when
there’s students and drunken members about is it? There were still a few issues to deal with
but at least with three warning notices on the outside doors I felt as if I
nearly had a ‘get-out-of-jail card’ as long s nobody died in a blazing inferno.
So
now it was time to go caving and that’s when Sam turned up, bright eyed and
bushy tailed, chomping at the bit as usual. Our goal was to try the new
concrete screw technology in The Crumbles. Now there are few caves where name actually gives a full description of the
nature of the orifice, but The Crumbles is absolutely spot on. We arrived at
the entrance to be eaten alive by rampant midges, not a good start. Sam then
began the removal of all the flood debris that had covered the rotting timber
meant to protect the cave from the raging waters. For those that don’t know the
cave it is a mere few metre downstream of Mistral, a letterbox-shaped cleft in
the small crag. Having removed all the detritus we lowered the gear down the
short drop into the chaos that is the main chamber. The floor slopes down to a
drum filled with large rubble, understandable as the whole floor of the chamber
is rubble, the walls fall off at the slightest touch and the roof doesn’t look
that safe either, Crumbles, oh yes! So why were we here again? The length in
Northern Caves says, length ..............metres but I’ve surveyed it and only
got ............metres so there’s the rub.
Across the chamber the floor rises to
a small and short passage, on the right is a ledge and beyond a pitch of 5
metres to what Sam had previously described as a too tight squeeze that we
intended to enlarge one way or another. Further up the sloping rubble strewn
passage another ledge, this time on the left leads to a wet muddy tube that Sam
and I had given some attention in the past as it is very close to the end of
the Dinnertime Series in Pippikin.
Our
mission, to drop the pitch using a Concrete Screw as an anchor and see what we
could do at the bottom. The screw went in easily but unfortunately the hanger
hole was less than the diameter of the screw so fitting the two together took a
little effort. Eventually the ladder was attached and down I went to find the
bottom of the pitch full of rubble but a bedding led off and although it looked
as if I’d fit through I climbed out and let Mister Squeezy
take over. Sure enough he fitted easily and soon yelled for me to go into the
main chamber. Hmmm! There was his light shining out of a hole right under the
entrance drop, so that was one mystery solved. While he headed back to the
pitch I cleaned out the end of the bedding in quick time making a through-trip
easily possible. So where was this Square Cavern? Where were the
missing...............metres? Oh crap we’d have to come back and clear out the
drum, not a very appealing prospect but do-able with a chain-gang. Yes it is
‘Crumbly’ but it’s close to The Frontier and Dinnertime Series in Pippikin, Border Sump in the Earby
Series and not a million miles from the upstream continuation of Pegleg Pot. So
all in all it might be worth a little more consideration but very carefully
given its name.
Exiting,
we were yet again greeted by friendly midges and we beat a hasty retreat into
the growing gloom only to find Sam had left Excalibur his trusty crowbar for
which he had to return to the fray. On the plus side the concrete screw was so
much easier to place than a spit, IC or P-anchor, bargain! Just drill a hole,
blow out the dust and screw it in with the hanger fitted, easy!
Ray
Duffy (President-oh yes!)