This week is the last week of the school summer holidays and also the last week that George is with us for his six-month Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award. It’s been great having you on the team, George, and your little bit of legacy is your bench.

Designed by Andrew who also made the Bethel “Wiggers” bench, so we know that it’s gonna be there for a very long time.

We look forward to seeing you at half-term.

We strimmed back the path, fanning out from the JLR bench and started to think about the deep scallops that we need to cut onto the scrub now the bird-nesting season is all but over.

We can see how this is starting to take shape and how we are using mature trees as a feature within the scallop if we can.

The deeper we go in, the better, because each scallop will be a sheltered little micro-habitat for biodiversity. It also makes it far more interesting for people who enjoy walking or cycling on the path.

I had my litter-picking crew today, due to the school holidays, and they did us proud.

Two kilometres covered (there and back that’s 4 km) so well done, kids. A well-earned McDonald’s followed…

Not a regular thing so don’t worry!

We enjoyed coffee and Goerge made us all some banana loaf, which was delicious.

This is probably one of the best parts of us getting together every week and doing what we do.

Next month we have Bilton Beavers helping and also a group from Jaguar Land Rover, who might try to do something with this bench as part of their day with us.

If not, we know how to turn it into a 4-seater.

Here is our YouTube of some of the progress today.

The reason that we use YouTube is because I am unable to load videos directly onto the blog without signing up to the next tier, which will cost me even more money. Of course, I would love to be a YouTuber with 500,000 subscribers and enough imagination to put out interesting and engaging content every week, but sadly, I’m not.

Lastly, here is a rather nice photo from Matthew Gordon (Cawston resident) of the sunset behind one of our benches.

I love it.

Dunchurch Bridleway

Somehow we continue to push on westwards and there are just 70 metres of path snipping back left, until the bridleway meets the railway. When we see 70 metres against the whole length of the bridleway, it looks like nothing.

I’m not really that bothered about this bit, preferring to wait until the cycle path along the new road connects us, but someone unknown seems to want it open and accessible.

The temporary Right of Way that connects to the greenway has been cleared by about 50 metres, so slowly it’s kinda coming together.

If it gets people walking or cycling between Cawston and Dunchurch, then I guess it’s all good.

Next week we are back at Potford Dam and for me, this is Dream Street because we can start to create the deep scallops with our hedge trimmers. Butterflies and bees, thank me later…

Until then!

Paul