…the third rock from the sun.

We had what is called a Parade of Planets this week, where all the planets line up and some can be seen with the naked eye. Quite a sight if you like star-gazing, and another nugget of useless information that might pop up as a pub quiz question somewhere in the Universe.

Back here on Earth we had more pressing matters to deal with. We seem to be in a bit of a race against the rampant growth of everything green.

We started where we finished last week, which was at the Wiggers Bethel bench, which undoubtedly has the best views on the greenway, and ploughed on.

The width is so important if walkers and cyclists are to share the path.

We’re covering decent chunks of ground, with 600 metres done again today, but very soon we need to go back to the start and do it all again. A bit like painting the Forth Bridge.

No… Not that sort of painting, you dummy…

Better.

We have covered 2 kilometres in total and have the Berrybanks bit to do next week, before we go back and start again.

Triad of Benches

We’re replacing the smashed up picnic bench by The Bear bridge, thanks to Rich for his buy-me-a-coffee donation.

Hopefully the triad will last a bit longer than the last bench. People complain that we don’t spend as much of our efforts at this end – Hmm, a little bit of food for thought, right there!

They will go into the ground in this triangle formation and the seat height will be about 45cm.

We also did some running repairs on the bench at Berrybanks.

The design is absolutely awful and we need to build an exoskeleton if it’s going to have any chance of lasting. I need an engineer and I need one fast!!

The recycled bench had a bit of a battering from the naughty squirrels, again.

I found a bit of wood in my shed and repaired it, but at some point we will need to replace the table part with the same timber as the seats, which will cost us just £10. This bench has been with us for such a long time and has terrific sentimental value. Because of that, I would like to keep it in use.

Me, a long, long time ago!!

It will always puzzle me when the very thing that you want to sit at becomes a target for destruction. Is there not a thought process that kicks in and says, “hang on, if we break this we will have nowhere to sit.” Bizarre how that connection is seemingly so difficult to make.

Geocaching Dino Trail Relaunch

We now have a chap called Andrew who has taken control of the geocaching trial. It was never a good match for me with my ridiculously-short attention span. The last time I looked it had something like 2,500 finds along the 12 cache trail, so it’ll be good to see this back up and running, and properly maintained. Thank you Andrew.

Please give it a go. It’s a good six mile there-and-back trek and great for kids and grandkids.

Dunchurch Bridleway

We are hopefully putting a couple of really decent benches in next Friday at 10am. I am slowly getting myself organised with this trail and will be doing work on it every other Friday, to keep it cut back and connected to the Cawston trail. If you want to help just keep an eye out for some dates to appear on the right.

Lastly, I topped up the bird feeders to keep everyone happy.

Next week we are down at Berrybanks trying to impersonate Mosses and get the water to go down the drain. Wellies optional, a good sense of humour absolutely essential.

Until then!

Paul