Six of us met up at the Potford Dam end and started to shape and mould the path like a fine sculpture.

We have twists and turns, kinks and corners, and best of all, we have scallops.

We’re getting behind some of the trees so people can walk on either side if they so wish. It just makes it way more interesting. The scallops where there are blackberries will be pushed deeper back once the fruit has gone. It was our first outing with our new hedge trimmer and will take a few weeks for us to get to know how it works and get a feel for it.

The general idea is, a scallop to the left, followed by a scallop to the right, and then back to the left, so the path edge becomes wriggly and full of little sheltered micro-habitats.

If we have a big tree we can try and form the scallop around it.

We covered about 400 metres today so good progress and the grass where we strimmed last week has not grown, so we can really push all of our attention towards the scrub at the edges.

The width is so important for the mental well-being aspect of the path. If people can see a good 100 yards ahead of themselves they don’t tend to feel anxious whilst walking alone, or sitting at the benches, and if people are walking with others, it means they can walk two or three abreast and have an actual conversation. And because that conversation sometimes might be a bit difficult, the fact that we are doing something else whilst having it, makes it a little easier than say, sitting face-to-face across a picnic bench.

I kinda hope that everyone gets where we are coming from and knows that there is a place where it is safe to chat about stuff, especially us men who are pretty rubbish at opening up about the things that are weighing heavily upon us.

And on that cheerful note, we collected a bag of litter which, to be honest, was more full of litter from outside the path rather than on the path itself.

We are back at this part of the path next week working on the canopy above the Brook View bench, and the view down to the brook.

The bench needs more sunlight and believe it or not, there is a brook down there at the bottom of the slope that will look lovely from the bench.

The wildflower glades need clearing out so I guess we can start on this next week, too.

This one has been a bit of a disappointment this year, but I think this was because spring was so wet and the grass simply took over. I have a huge amount of wildflower seed collected last year so we can give it a boost.

Our YouTube of a bit of the path where we worked today.

Hopefully, it just gives people a gist of what we are looking like.

We are back at Dunchurch Bridleway on Friday and back at the start, keeping the path grass short and the width wide and open.

Until then!

Paul