{"id":281,"date":"2010-10-13T08:44:20","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T08:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.osmingtonwhitehorse.info\/?p=281"},"modified":"2011-02-18T16:03:56","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T16:03:56","slug":"chris-12-october-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.osmingtonwhitehorse.info\/?p=281","title":{"rendered":"Chris – 12 October 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
Another superb day up on the White Horse! I had other distractions this morning so it was early afternoon before I made the climb \u2013 and before you ask \u2013 it was no easier! The weather was just as good though and even the wind dropped a bit later on. <\/p>\n

The Gregorys team had already filled another 40 bags by then and that included clearing the front legs and raking the loose gravel from around them. Those legs are quite deceptive and what looked like quite a thin layer of scalpings proved to be much more. We were all pretty surprised when the first of the back legs yielded close to half a tonne every metre.<\/p>\n

It was great to see that the Dorset Echo ran a piece on the project in today\u2019s paper and the result was that we had quite a few sightseers. And as one of my distractions this morning was to send off some more photos to the Echo, it is likely that we will see more coverage in the coming days.<\/p>\n

At the end of play today, there were 150 bags ready for the helicopter lift and the team will aim to fill about another 30 tomorrow. They will then return after the bulk of these bags have been lifted so that they can remove the scalpings that have formed the ledges to support them.<\/p>\n

I headed down the hill as the lads were getting ready to call it a day and I was nearly at the bottom when a loud whoop echoed across the hillside. No it was not joy at having finished another hard day of shoveling \u2013 it was to warn me that a large yellow trug had escaped and was heading my way. Now goal keeping has never been my strong point \u2013 but I did catch it \u2013 and my reward was to climb halfway back to return it!<\/p>\n

As I walked home I couldn\u2019t help thinking that the White Horse looked like it had stepped in some white paint. Those new gravel bags certainly give it a sparkly white finish – but I shall not be sorry to see them go.<\/td>\n

Click thumbnails for larger image<\/code>\t\t\t\t