More scrubbing

on a different section of the river bed, a big flat slabby section of massive stone blocks running along the river wall for about 100 metres - we don't know what it is yet, so the current technical term  for it is 'A Long Hard Thing'. This was a fabulously satisfying exercise, we were like the Borrowers cleaning a giant's front path, the mud lay like chocolate blancmonge with a furry green skin that sliced off neatly with a trowel and then after a bit of scrubbing the stone became visible along with stone-mason marks.

The houses that existed behind the wall in the C18th were ultra-gothic stone mansions and no-one wanted to buy them so they were demolished to make space for cheapy little houses - now selling for several million pounds. It's possible that this pavement was made from that gothic rubble, possibly to shore up the wall.

Further down the shore some people are looking out for Viking fish traps and there are boatloads of people on the water