If you’re viewing via the WordPress Reader, please click on cawstongreenway.co.uk so that all the slideshows work properly and the images are the correct size.

Last week we came dressed as Italian plumbers, this week we put on our carpenter outfits and decided to do some woodwork. Ian, Reece, Mark, and Paul turned out on a low numbers day. Various members of the team are on holiday, and others have more pressing commitments, like working to earn actual money!

Our three oblong benches were starting to “flex” a bit, so needed something doing to them. Of course, I had the job of chief photo-taker, so left the guys to figure out exactly what was needed.

We have a bit of rot on the last bench, so we will be stripping that out probably in July at some point, but a very successful first half of the session and all three benches no longer “flex” when we sit at them.

At half time, I rustled up some bacon rolls to keep us all fed and caffeinated.

Today’s brunch was sponsored by Jacquie via an amazing buy-me-a-coffee donation, that will keep us in bacon until the end of the year. Pauline has also done a buy-me-a-coffee donation, so we get a double hit of bacon rolls this month. Thank you both so very much.

The second half of the morning was pushing back the path so people can walk side-by-side and not get their legs chewed off by critters lurking in the long grass.

We did about 300 metres in the 40 minutes left, which would be 600+ metres if we were just strimming for the whole morning.

We also have some nice wildflowers starting, and a whole load about to pop.

This is what it’s all about – humans and nature living side-by-side.

Dunchurch Bridleway

Ian, Ruby, and Paul met up last Friday, and we cleared a load of dead trees around our picnic bench.

I know that standing dead wood is good for nature, but when it’s all tangled above the picnic table, it’s possibly not so good for humans if it falls. We want to turn this area into a decent glade in the autumn. We can see how quickly the path is being encroached, and we will get into this on the next session.

We litter-picked a good 1.3 km of the path and mostly found plastic sheeting from the warehousing.

Muggins also had to hand-pull the bramble under the benches because the strimmer was back where we started, but a good morning.

Great views of open farmland.

And loads of wildflowers pushing up.

It really is a decent place to walk, cycle, sit at a bench and just feel at one with nature, or join us on our workdays add to this amazing place.

Next week we’re at the Bear Bridge putting in our dry youth area. We are massively concerned that we are creating something that leads to a load of unintended consequences, so we will tread very slowly and monitor before we roll out further youth areas.

At the moment, when it rains, the youth try to drag our picnic benches under the cover of the bridges, which is not great for the benches.

Let’s see if we can all work together…

Until then!

Paul