Spring has officially started, at last!!

It’s actually the spring equinox today, the time of the year when the day and the night are an equal length.

In cultures around the world, the spring equinox has represented a time of renewal, fertility, and rebirth. In agricultural societies, the spring equinox marked the start of the planting season, when crops are sown and farmers begin preparing for the coming season of growth.

Sadly, I once again seem to have missed all the Pagan and Druid revellers at our pop-up stone circle. I might try to get up a bit earlier next year to capture the hedonistic partying.

DISCLAIMER: This is not the real view – if you catch a train, plane or taxi to come and see it you will be bitterly disappointed…

This time of the year is really exciting because everything is slowly turning green!

We can now start to see what it is that I keep blathering on about. Look how the path gently twists and bends, and the green swathes of path-edge that we will allow to become wildflower rich. We might just get a load of nettles in places, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all good for the wildlife.

Our YouTube of our progress.

We didn’t get to stain the benches this week because it was raining when we started, so we divided a load of snowdrops from our secret supply and added to the snowdrop bank.

If we just keep adding a little bit more every year, it will soon be a lush carpet, and this is only the third year so it ain’t so bad.

Our little bench on this bank is going to be stained next week and then we are going to stencil Chainsaw Ed onto it, in memory of Edmund who used to come down with his chainsaw and created this clearing, many years ago.

We broke for coffee and gingernut cookies at 11am and as you can see, there are a couple of spare all-terrain mugs and loads of delicious hot coffee going spare.

Dig deep for a little bit of social bravery and join us if you need a bit of positive human interaction.

There has been a lot of stuff in the current media about finding purpose in life, such as making a small part of the world around us a slightly better place, and how it can have a really positive impact on our own mental health.

And whilst we are skirting around mental health, here is a quick and easy guide to getting some good feelings happening in our brains.

If we just do one or two things and see if it makes a difference – leave a comment below to let me know what you think.

Let’s give it a go!

Whilst I was messing about in the mud, I remembered to fill up the bird feeders.

Let’s hope that the naughty squirrels don’t notice the free lunch on offer.

Lastly, we have yet another supporter…

Dunchurch Pantomaniacs have kindly funded five bird nesting boxes.

They are a lot more sturdy than the nesting boxes from Wilko, so hopefully we will get a good few years of use out of them.

Thank you, Dunchurch Pantomaniacs for the generous support.

Well that’s about it for this week. Next week we go onwards towards the underpass working northbound.

Until then!

Paul