Whilst Sarah and I were sitting in the warm in Llandovery, Menna and two hardy volunteers (Gaynor and Brian) had ventured up the Black Mountain to continue with the plane table survey. There was less wind and more sunshine so setting up the survey equipment and taking measurements was a great deal easier!
Gaynor (on left) and Brian (on right) taking measurements with the plane table survey equipment
As you can see in the picture above, the survey equipment has been set up on concrete – throughout the day it became increasingly obvious that this was a bad idea. The concrete meant that the feet of the tripod could not get a grip on the ground which in turn made it very easy to knock the station out of alignment which results in having to constantly recalibrate the station… A learning curve for all involved; don’t set up your plane table station on concrete!!
By the end of the day (after many re-shuffles of the plane table survey kit), Menna and the team had made great progress in drawing parts of the office block survey – about one fifth of the building was recorded – perhaps not as much as had been aimed at, but considering the difficulties encountered during the day this was a great start!
The extent of survey drawing recorded by the end of the day
but i did /(got?) the biggest kick-learnt a lot this day but it was cold!
Glad you had a good time! Hope you can feel your fingers now though, takes me a while to defrost at the end of the day!