Friday, August 29, 2003

Greetings from Weardale.

Despite yesterday's sunny beginning, the clouds quickly set in and it was rather rainy for most of the day. By late afternoon the clouds were breaking and while driving up the dale around 1830 I was presented with one of those dramatic pastoral landscape scenes that were so popular with 19th century painters. Big billowing clouds with pink edges, shafts of light poking through here and there, deep green rolling hills dotted with sheep and the occasional stone cottage, long shadows creeping across the fields - you know the type. Overnight a storm front seems to have moved in and this morning it is cold and rainy. Being load out day, this was expected though.

Yesterday morning was an exercise in frustration. We were scheduled to have some mining equipment delivered to the quarry from Kendal between 0930 - 1000 so I raced down the dale to meet the driver at our gate. Good thing I had a book as he didn't actually arrive until 1130. Upon arriving the driver (a young and apparently rather inexperienced lad) refused to drive up the track into the quarry. Despite my assurances that we have had numerous trucks the size of his in and out without problem he would not do it. He seemed to have a major fear of getting even the slightest scratch on his employer's vehicle from the overhanging branches along the track. I finally convinced him to pull inside the gate and off load the equipment along the side of the road. The gear is quite heavy so we will now have to hire someone locally to shift it up to the mine. A bit of an unexpected nuisance, but I figured it was preferable to getting really angry with the guy.

After finishing with the driver I went up to the mine and found Byron busy sawing up the large boulder Cal had dislodged in the West Cross Cut the day before. He managed to cut off a fairly large fluorite-covered plate with a stalactite poking up out of the middle. The official "last specimen" of the season, and should be quite nice when it's cleaned up. I loaded it into the trunk of the car and drove back to the cottage where I presented it to Cal. Jonina and Sarah were busy weighing and cataloging the final bins for shipment so Cal and I were pressed into service moving them from one pile to another, and sometimes back again. This accomplished, I took off for a little bit and met Byron at the pub for a beer.

Kerith received a "good news-bad news" evaluation on her ankle at the clinic yesterday. The good news is that they were able to put a lighter fiberglass cast on it and the doctor says she is able to travel. The bad news is that the doctor thinks she will need to have it operated on fairly quickly. If she has that done here she will not be able to travel for at least six weeks, so yesterday afternoon she and Cal hurriedly changed their flight schedules and will now be leaving Weardale with the rest of us tomorrow morning.

The truck to pick up our fluorite is scheduled for around 1000 this morning, and if all goes according to schedule we will have to afternoon to clean up the cottage and return it to some semblance of order for Bob and Mary. Hopefully I'll find a little bit of time to say my goodbyes to our local friends at the pub. And with that we will head off into the sunset for another season here in the peaceful north of England.

Cheers,

Jesse & the crew.

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