BTCV Edinburgh Diary

It's been a while but we're back!

Well, how to sum up the last month in a concise way? We've moved office to an actual building made of bricks which those of you familiar with our old office will know is to be very welcomed. I will publish our new contact details separately.

Project wise, the big news is we've finished Newhaven Church! 18 days of hard work have really paid off and it looks amazing and the Church are overjoyed with their new deck. Everyone involved should be very proud of the work that we've done, it's a testament to what volunteers can achieve! Check out the photos to see the finished article!

We've also been building some more jigsaw shape raised beds (last seen at Gardening Scotland 08) for Strathesk Primary School in Penicuik, erecting a greenhouse and shed for the Orchard Clinic at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and pulling up Himalayan Balsam with the Countryside Ranger Service.

On the Volunteer Officer front it's been all change again as Alaitz has returned to Spain and Ianire has arrived to take up her 4 month post with us. We've also been joined by Vicks and soon David will return from his month away in Slovenia. Alan is dipping his toe in the water of being a VO to see how it suits him. It's great to have a team of good VOs working with me to make our projects run better and make sure I don't forget anything!

We'll be back to regular postings from now on, so keep an eye on us!

Chris

Posted by BTCV Edinburgh at 08:36 0 comments  

Labels: Hermitage of Braid, Newhaven Church, Royal Edinburgh

We finally made it to Gardening Scotland. So we didn't help build it we just ripped it apart but it looked great before we destroyed it so well done to Heath and everyone who helped. Then on Wednesday we were back at Newhaven Church doing much the same stuff.

Posted by BTCV Edinburgh at 14:00 1 comments  

Labels: Gardening Scotland, Newhaven Church

For the last couple of weeks we've all become regular churchgoers as our presence at Newhaven Church is almost constant. The results of our commitment are showing as the deck and ramp are looking great and even the picket fence is springing up. Everybody involved should be very proud of the project! We do edge ever closer towards completion as the final deck board was laid today on the ramp so now it's just handrails, planting and extending the fence around the garden (I'm sure we'll be finished in no time at all).

We did manage to squeeze in a different location on the 27th as we headed over to the Hermitage of Braid to clear and re-edge some paths and cutback some vegetation. We even got in some Himalayan Balsam removal, obviously a sign of Summer coming! It was great to see the Blue Tit nest again on the live video link. Last time we visited there were eggs and now there are many hungry mouths to feed, the adult birds are being kept very busy providing food.

Posted by BTCV Edinburgh at 17:25 0 comments  

Labels: Hermitage of Braid, Newhaven Church

The group spent the whole week at newhaven church. We painted the hand rails, cemented posts, constructed joists for the the ramp, laid the first section of decking, broke lots of stones, Nicky had lots of frustration trying to break one very tough rock whitch eventualy turned into a very nice looking bear, put up fenceing on the main part of the decking whitch we attached rope to for climbing plants.
So all in all a very productive week and things are shapeing up really nicely
p.s thanks to chris and the cafe for the lovely cakes.

Posted by BTCV Edinburgh at 11:23 0 comments  

Labels: Newhaven Church

We were back at Newhaven Church on Tueday and Thursday this week. The holes for the posts were dug on Tuesday, and the big frame finished off. On Thursday we started positioning the posts. There was a lot of head-scratching and tweaking, checking and double-checking before we started adding the cement! We also got the smaller frame built and positioned.

On Wednesday we were at Broughton Primary School, building a couple of classic BTCV, shabby-chic raised beds for the kids to grow things in. We also helped out with weeding some of the other planters in the playground. The kids were very interested in what we were up to, and we hope they get a lot of enjoyment out of them.

Posted by BTCV Edinburgh at 21:11 0 comments  

Labels: Broughton Primary, Newhaven Church

We carried on at Newhaven Church on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. We didn't have too many more obstacles, only a couple more giant rocks to get past. The ground is now level to within nanometres (until the plan changes again...), so we've started to dig the post holes and build some of the frames.

On Thursday we were at Portobello Community Orchard. We were clearing the ground along the south side of the orchard, ready for the community group to plant some espaliers. A couple of determined sorts had a go at removing some of the smaller tree stumps around the orchard, with varying degrees of success.

Posted by BTCV Edinburgh at 21:13 0 comments  

Labels: Newhaven Church, Portobello Community Orchard

The group started quite a big project at Newhaven Church this week. We are putting in some decking and a ramp for use by the Church cafe (we can strongly recommend their coffee cake). So on Tuesday we removed the turf and started digging. It all went pretty well until the end of the day when Kate found an old gas pipe...

So on Wednesday we were back at the church and a man from the gas board was going to come to verify that the pipe was indeed dead. However during the tool talk we got a slight whiff of gas; it was probably from the gasworks over the back wall but we decided it best to leave. So after a quick changeover of tools, lunchtime saw us at Corstorphine Hill playing a few games of Tunnel-Tig to keep warm in the mist. We then spent the afternoon removing some old rickety fencing and clearing a lot of litter.

The pipe turned out to be completely dead, no one was ever in any danger, so we were back at the church to continue excavations on Thursday. There was some slight confusion over levels and a lot of huge rocks had to be shifted, but we made good progress.

Posted by BTCV Edinburgh at 09:19 0 comments  

Labels: Newhaven Church