Today was all about windows, windows and windows. I think we’re on Version 11. Our Hawthorn Trail needs as much light coming in as possible. Nothing will grow without sunlight, well maybe mushrooms, but not a lot else. We also need to be able to look out across the wildflower meadow or it becomes horribly enclosed and dark, which means nobody will want to go down there.

So we created windows, and lots of them.

There is a link in the menu at the top that explains more about this 220 metre diversion. I think we will probably spend a week per month on it. In the summer of next year we want it to be a good hedge with standard trees and really working with the wildflower meadow next door.

In other news, I fixed the smashed up bird-box from last week and put it back up.

I normally use the belt of my trousers to attach the top of the ladder to the tree. Incredibly, the tree had a wider girth than me so it wouldn’t fit around. I am obviously not drinking enough beer!

Trying to reattach the bird-box to the tree with just two hands, so trying to somehow hold on, hold the bird-box, hold the screws, and hold the drill, was an almighty challenge. What should’ve been a 2 minute task took an eternity because I had to keep going back down the ladder to retrieve everything that I kept dropping.

But it’s up and hopefully will stay up and we will have a brood of blue tits from it next spring.

We took a break and enjoyed coffee and coconut macaroons at one of our round benches.

We thought that the angry mob of squirrels were playing tricks on us. Every few minutes there was a kind of plop behind us, but when we turned around there was nothing there. Was this some sort of decoy to lure us into the prickly brambles? Thankfully, it was acorns popping off the mahoosive oak tree that we were sitting under and landing in the undergrowth. It was a bit weird before we worked it out.

The school holidays have mercifully finished so I have freedom for a few months. I decided that I would go hill-walking after the greenway workday, so wore shorts.

A huge mistake, again!! I don’t know what is worse – the instant stab of bramble-thorns or the irritating hours-long tingling and itchiness of nettle stings…

Next week we are clearing the areas for our new round picnic benches. September is going to be humping heavy stuff up and down the path again. Great!!

Lastly, we have two new countries tuning it. We swing back to Africa after our Nordic excursion last week.

Somalia and Malawi took a look this week and the chap (I think it’s a chap) from Somalia messaged me to say hello! He is there helping with the war effort. What on earth makes someone put down their AK47 and search for blogs about railway-paths in Warwickshire is totally beyond me, but thank you so much.

That’s 108 out of 195 countries in the whole world and 22 out of 54 in Africa. I probably need to do work on that bit south of Russia, but it’s looking good so far.

Until next week!