Whilst we were back at the Potford Dam end, with delightful views over Lawford Heath, I was reminded of the day that David, the Ecologist from Sustrans came to help. He brought cookies and Lady’s Bedstraw seeds, and we brought coffee. Obviously we didn’t eat the bedstraw seeds whilst feasting on cookies and coffee… It was early in 2019 and we had just started our new mini-wildflower glade. We also had the second of our world-famous round picnic tables to build.

The wildflower glade is now pretty much self-sufficient with a really good mix of flora and fauna.

We have gently pushed it out over the years to make it slightly larger. That was, until this year, when something came over me and I decided that it needed to be twice the size.

Feast your eyes on this…

Now, for a second, cast your mind back to last week. I was explaining about how the wildflower glade that Charlie is creating for his DofE is taking time to get going. We can see exactly the same here, one side is into its 5th year and the other side is just starting its 1st year. The Lady’s Bedstraw took until last year to come up, so 4 years of the seed sitting in the ground and just pondering and a kinda “will I, won’t I” sort of conversation with itself…

I guess what I’m trying to say, in a round-about sort of way, is that Rome wasn’t built in a day and these things do require buckets and buckets of patience. Not my strongest trait by a long long way, but Mother Nature ain’t gonna be rushed, regardless of how hard I stamp my feet and shout obscenities at the ground. Ooh, a mental vision of Basil Fawlty just popped into my head and now it won’t go away!!

Whilst I’m in a wistful and nostalgic look back at the wildflower glade creation and bench-building kinda place, let’s for a minute, talk about the bench. It’s had a tough life, being thrown down the bank a couple of times and had the seats ripped off, when the mob of angry squirrels have had too much fighting-juice. But it always rises from the ashes and comes back stronger.

I’m just really happy with how we have looked after this one, and all the benches on the greenway. All too often I see wooden picnic benches that are scabby and rotten, almost continually damp and covered in a sort of mossy lichen that leaves a hideous green rash-like stain on your trousers when you sit down. So well done, team. Give yourselves a virtual slap-on-the-back, or indeed, a real one, if you have long enough arms!!

I bet you just tried to give yourself a slap on the back. I did, and I wrote the blooming thing…

We’re going to stencil “CAWSTONGREENWAY.CO.UK” on all of the picnic benches when our stencil set arrives though the post. Hopefully one of us will discover some artistic flair, or this could turn out to be a very messy disaster. The pressure is on… However, if we can pull it off, imagine people sitting at the benches reading the blog about the very benches that they are sitting on. In my strange and geeky mind, I find that quite amusing.

Until next week!