Nice to Go Travelling

Well I have just had a couple of weeks on a beach in Cuba-Nice!

The weather has certainly changed while I have been away it is a lot colder and a whole lot wetter.

When I returned over the Pennines yesterday there was snow on the tops and a light covering at home here in Leeds. What a change from 30* in Cuba.

I spent the morning sorting out a backlog of e-mails and post but the sun was shinning and the ground was calling so I put paper my work on hold.

This is the square as I found it, you can see the weak area at the bottom right of photo apart from that it looked in reasonable order - no signs of any disease. I contacted Martin from Complete Weed Control before I went away, asking him to spray against fungal disease.  I was concerned after last year when we had a foot of snow while I was away and I ended up with patches of snow mould all over the square. 

I was pleased to see that the leaves are now off the trees and by the looks of things there has been some winds as they have mostly blown off the outfield now.

I am not sure this photo shows up the water that was present on a couple of pitches at the bottom of the square -if you click it and enlarge it you may see better. However as a result I thought it better to keep off the square for today.

This is the net area behind the score box it has been spiked just once so I decided that would be my job to re-spike it.  

Job done, it was a little wet in places but took full depth of the tine that's about 3" or 75mm for you young ones.

Can you see the spike holes?

The brush in my Rota Rake is worn and needs new bristles. The bad news is I could not get it out of the square hole it is fixed in, all the dust and damp must have got in there and made it very very tight. I had to dismantle the complete shaft, sprocket and all three bearings eventually I bossed it.

I also have a problem with the front roller as you can see it is not parallel and the eccentric bush will not take up the difference so I think the shaft is bent that is a job for a wet day.

And finally I got the brush assembly out I will now send it off to Brushes North West and they will  re-bristle it for me.

I was thinking as I was doing this job that while I am mending machines I am not working on the turf which is what I -think- should be doing. I cannot stress enough the importance of having machinery up to speed and working. There is nothing more frustrating than turning up with limited time and first pull of the starting cord and it snaps. So you spend it repairing the machine instead of working on the job you came to do in the first place. I must get on top of servicing or sending my machines off  to be serviced

over the winter months.

If the weather is fine on Wednesday I am off to spike a couple of squares I will keep you all posted.