Quite a few times we have felt like calling in the USAF to napalm the whole path and give us a blank canvas to start again and do it our way, however, we have to work with what we have and try to make the best of it.

We used to burn off the brash (brash is a posh word for cuttings) by building enormous bonfires. We had a lady called Margaret who learnt the craft of bonfire starting and keeping it going, which is the hardest bit, from Mick. Sadly, we received a savage tongue-lashing from the Sustrans Higher Command, who are the land owners, about the bonfires so we had to stop. Apparently, if someone doesn’t notice the roaring flames and white-hot heat, they might wander into it and burn themselves, and then someone else will be liable for compensation. Plus I was getting a bit tired of going home smelling like an oak-smoked kipper.

So Sustrans Higher Command told us to build habitat piles with the brash. They said to build them on the edge of the path, but when the edge is 40 foot up a slippery bank, we crumbled and built them all over the place, except on the edges, because it’s winter when we do the cutting back, and we don’t want to slip and injure ourselves and then have the hassle of trying to find someone else, who is liable for our compensation.

So anyway, to make sure we were on the right path, I consulted The Wildlife Trust, YouTube and Google.

What came back was this rather simple five-point guide to help the biodiversity along. It’s so simple, that even a blithering idiot like me can follow it…

Decay – Logs, compost heaps, piles of logs with lots of nooks and crannies for creatures to crawl about in, burrow in and lay eggs in.

Shrubs & Trees – birds love tree and shrub cover, so as much as possible.

Insect Hotels – solitary bees, wasps and beetles will lay eggs into these. Lots and lots of different sized holes that are all south facing.

Water – a lot of flying insects start their life at the larval stage, in water, so lots of it.

Sunshine – lots of sunshine to make plants grow, nectar to form and insects to thrive.

Simple, innit!!

Which brings us nicely to today. Our drain has overflowed again, so we have lots and lots of water, but unfortunately all in the wrong place.

We need to work out how to get the water to flow across the path, rather than down it. A job for the winter when we can chop everything back and have a proper look.

We ambled northwards from the Underpass, chatting away and snipping back bramble runners.

When news came through on the jungle-drums that the new-old recycled picnic bench had been set-upon by a mob of angry squirrels, after too much fighting juice.

I best charge-up the electric power-tools ready for next week. It’s gonna be a manly woodworking-workshop. You cannot imagine how excited we are…

After that we poured ourselves a cuppa in our all-terrain-mugs and chatted about god-knows-what… Just man-stuff conversations. I vaguely remember Land Rovers, Range Rovers and Jeremy Clarkson, before looking at the time and somehow it was past 12 o’clock and time to pack up.

So there it is, another exciting week on the trail, loads of people passing by. Great for the soul and mental wellbeing.

Thanks for reading.