These historic events are coming thick and fast at the moment. Last week we had Halloween, this week we had Bonfire Night which gives me the chance to show off the lovely village where I live.

Dunchurch (in England for my International followers) is famous for The Gunpowder Plot in 1605.

Guy Fawkes tried to blow-up Parliament with two-and-a-half tons of gunpowder and his co-conspirators waited for news of the plot at an inn right here in the village.

Here are a few snaps of the inn, which is now a private residence, and a few more of the village.

Possibly a little self-indulgent, but it is what it is. The Dunchurch railway station is the first stop along the old railway-line that runs from Rugby to Leamington Spa and part of it is now the nature trail that this blog is all about.

We are still on the path-widening mission and once it is done, we are going to try to keep it this wide through the spring and summer, and push the wildflower-rich grassy edge outwards before the bramble scrub starts. We’re just wasting so much time going over the same ground each year.

This is what I did before today to keep us on track.

The weather took a squally turn for the worst today and quite a few times I felt a trickle of rain snaking down my spine. But we cracked on and made a start on the next 150 metre chunk of path.

What we are trying to do is release the raised ballast path that runs alongside the muddy strip. It just gives people the option of walking on dry ground, rather than in the muddy puddles.

There’s still a bit of work to do on this bit, but rather than get totally bogged down here for weeks on end, I will get it finished before next Wednesday.

After my various excursions around Woodland Trust managed woods over the last week, and watching reel upon reel of YouTube vids, the general consensus of a healthy woodland is lots of biodiversity and a lot of different areas for wildlife to move in and out of. Basically, lots of lichen, moss, fungi, grassland, wildflowers, decaying wood, scrub, and healthy well spaced-out trees. The wildlife will thrive if these things are present.

I did a quick audit of what was right in front of my nose and this is what I found…

We are pretty happy with this little snap-shot.

In other news, Martyn the Land Manager is going to look at the flooding problem at Berrybanks and work out what the best way to deal with it is. Watch this space.

And lastly, a new country has tuned in. Someone from Mauritius, which is a little island off the east coast of Africa.

Thank you Mauritian person for taking the time to look, from what looks like an absolutely divine place to live.

This puts us on 121 countries out of 195 in the whole World. Pretty humbling.

Think of my arms, back and legs as I get this bit of the path looking as good as the rest.

Until next week!