February 12th dawned bright, clear and very cold indeed, but at least we had not had any rain for the past 24 hours (something of a minor miracle) and the next two days looked reasonably clear on the weather forecast.
With the season just over a month away, we had to press on removing the significant sand build up behind the kick boards on the back straight and then get the newly cut and painted boards secured in place.
Disaster struck me within the first half hour. The frost was so severe that the sand was solid - we could not get a shovel into it. Instead we resorted to the pick axe and a fork. As I dug down into the permafrosted sand I struck a concrete block, conveniently left there by some kind fellow, and then buried. The shock of the sudden solid mass transferred its way up the fork tines, up the handle, into my arms and ricked a muscle in my lower back. Sharp pain and an undiluted stream of Anglo Saxon invective followed.
Rex, who was shoveling sand on the other side of the safety fence suggested that what I needed most was the care and attention that Flo, our Sports Therapist at the club. And Lo and Behold, who should make their entrance through the pit gate at exactly that moment bearing a fruit cake .. Flo.
Some oil on the tongue and a handful of Arnica tablets preceded the manipulations, carried out in full public glare in the car park. "This might hurt," Flo assured me as she grasped the back of my right knee and squeezed into the joint. She was right. I tried to point out that it was my back that hurt but by then she'd got her hands round my neck. What had I done wrong? Had I said the wrong thing? Was this some sort of revenge or medieval torture? But no. Pressure on the back of the skull and then on my shoulders preceded a manipulation of my lower back ... and the back was fine. Miraculous!
Sadly, the relief of pain was so quick and effective that I felt I ought to go back to work straight away.
With several dumper loads of sand now removed from behind the safety fence and a small trench dug in front, ready for the kick boards, progress was good and we looked forward to getting the back straight finished at long last.
But as Punch drove round grading out all of the loose material that we had dug out from the speedway side of the safety fence the next the next little challenge presented itself.
The dumper truck refused to start. No matter how we turned the key, prodded the battery, checked the engine, there was nothing there. And here we were in the middle of the back straight, a ton of sand in the bucket and no movement.
After much discussion it was decided that "bump" starting the thing was the only way around the problem. Punch hitched the tractor up to the dumper with a length of heavy chain and I was deposed to sit on said dumper.
Our first couple of efforts were dismal failures - the dumper lurching forward, me clinging on for dear life and then the chain coming undone. At this stage I was all for towing the truck back to the pits, but Punch is made of sterner stuff.
Let's get up some real speed before you engage gear he suggested.
With the tractor revving beyond all reasonable limits, we set off. Probably we were doing no more than 8 mph but it felt a lot faster than that. I dropped the clutch, the engine turned over and fired and all seemed to be OK. I called to Punch to slow down, but he couldn't hear me. Suddenly events took a turn for the worse. That "turn" was a sudden swerve to the right as the tractor left the track and headed off across the centre. Punch, in the mistaken belief that the dumper still hadn't started, decided that try to bump it on turn 2 wasn't a good idea and that we would be better off on the training track. By now it was clear that the tractor was going faster than the dumper could, even with its engine running. Fortunately, the "Keystone Cops" episode ended when Punch saw my frantic gesticulations and put on the brakes.
Everyone agreed that this was a good time to break for lunch.
The food was, as usual, excellent. Ron's gastronomic skills are fast becoming legendary - The Bistro at Number 96 could soon be in line for a Michelin Award, although in speedway terms perhaps it should be a Barum Award
The next major problem was actually getting out of the chair after the meal. My back had seized almost solid. Bent double, I shuffled out of Number 96, a mere observer of the afternoon's work.
With the first of the two Saturday working parties just over a week away we decided to abandon our day's work on the kickboards and turn our attention to the cabling up of the boards around the corners. The new boarding is working beautifully - no sand run off and little evidence of water damage. But the boarding does cover the safety fence at the points where we would clip the air fence in place.
Our solution is to run a length of heavy duty cable, the type used to run the hare around the greyhound track, around the corners and staple it at regular intervals to the boards. The clips on the air fence will now attach to this cable and keep it in place during the season.
Punch, Arron and Mike organise this on a very pleasant afternoon. It is still cold but the sun is lovely.
Getting the right tension in the wire is our main priority so this aspect of the work takes up the best part of what is left of the light.
Up on the bank by turn 3 the work on the new fencing (to stop errant spectators from walking backwards and plunging down into the riders' car park) is going ahead. Punch and his friend drill deep holes into the sand spoil that we have dumped there and then drop cut down telegraph poles in to them.
When you consider that this area was filled with brambles and that we have filled it with sand to a height of 4 feet and across a stretch 60 feet long you can see just how much material we have actually dug out.
It's been a winter of real contrasts in terms of the weather. Two weeks ago we could hardly see the main stand from the pit gate because of the fog and low cloud; now the sun is brilliant and the old place almost looks ready for the start of the season.
What we really want is another couple of fine weeks to dry everything out and then we'll be ready.
Sod's Law - Thursday 19th and it's tipping down with a combination of rain and snow. The wind whips the sleet across the Abbey Stadium, well known for being twinned with Siberia, as we make our doleful way out onto the track.
We now have sufficient boards to complete the work on the back straight but it's desperate work.
Roy Hicks is wearing a very natty little hat, waterproofed of course, while Mark Price hides under a voluminous jacket with a hood. Rex Woodruffe, who drives in from near Gloucester actually rings me at 9.30am to tell me that he's been forced back home by the snow that has reached as far as Cirencester, just up the road from us.
As we dig, so the trench fills with water - it is at times like this that we stand back and wonder what on earth we are doing here. Most of us have taken a day off work, rearranging our working weeks around free Thursdays, and all are volunteers working for the "love" of the sport. But that "love" is sorely tested when you are cold, wet, tired and your back, which has kept you awake at night for most of the intervening week, is aching again.
Those two photographs of a sun swept Blunsdon taken just a week ago are a distant memory now as the cloud closes in and the track turns to a mush under our feet.
And then it begins to rain even harder and we take reluctant shelter in the pits while the squall passes over.
We can't use the dumper on the track - the tyres would sink in too far and cause irreparable damage.
The tyre tracks from the big blade, which Ron had run around the previous weekend, are clearly marked on the shale and soon the ruts fill with water - it is a most depressing aspect.
But, sodden and cold, we do get the rest of the kickboards in on the back straight. No doubt there will be people who will look over from the grandstand and claim that they're not straight but nothing is as it seems. The dog track isn't level, neither is the safety fence and it we took our level from the track then we'd be digging down far more than necessary if we tried for "level".
A late lunch and then we start on changing round the two large blades on the back of the small grader. Made of steel or cast iron, they are very heavy and have been worn down by the track over last year. Fixed in place by a series of bolts, we wish to remove them, turn them around to give a new blade surface, and then fix them back in place.
Unfortunately the manufacturers have fixed the blades in place with bolts with a nylon inner ring, designed to prevent them from being unlocked. That fact, and a mixtures of shale and rust means that Punch and I have to resort to using lengths of scaffolding poles to provide sufficient leverage for the wrenches to get them off.
The job takes over an hour.
We spend the last half hour moving rubbish to the very bottom of the pits area, someway over almost behind the greyhound kennels. This area, long neglected, is so muddy that we have to put down duck boarding to walk on. Move off the wood and you sink beyond your ankles in the cloying sludge.
It reminds me of those dreadful photographs of 1st World War soldiers marching across the Somme on duck boards.
As the day come to an end I am reminded of Wilfred Owen's wonderful poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est". Somehow it seems fitting to end with it, alongside a 21st century take on duckboards and slime (see below).
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
