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The day started with a lone litter pick around the Berrybanks squirrel den… The naughty squirrels have moved our picnic bench into a secluded wooded area on the path, and goodness knows what hedonistic stuff is going on.

I was greeted by a pair of undies hanging from a tree, and a lot of rubbish. Someone is having a good time!!

I tidied up and trimmed the branches back for easier access. If this keeps the naughty squirrels contained, then I can live with it. We just need to think about replacement picnic seating in the area where the picnic bench was originally.

The area that we were worried about seems to have got off quite lightly.

Just a scrunched-up Coke can. Someone has dragged a branch, maybe to sit on, so I’m wondering if we need to put a third bench in to close the triangle? We’ll let it run for a couple of months across the summer before doing anything.

Anyhow – moving on to the main part of the day, after I had washed my eyes of the sight that I had just witnessed.

Seven of us turned out on a super-hot Wednesday. Steve, Marcus, Dave, Ian, Martin, Mark, and Paul. We only had 5 strimmers and I thought we were going to have to fight for them, but Ian and Paul went off to do something else after being completely strimmed out, as you will see in a minute.

We have always tried to get the profile of the path to look like a flat-bottomed V.

Today, we started to chip away at the overhang and it let so much more light in. We checked for nesting birds but it’s so near the path edge so there were none. This gives us a taster of the work needed in the autumn.

Everyone else set off southbound happily strimming away to keep the path wide enough for cyclists and walkers to share, and not be brushing up against the vegetation and getting savaged by the resident critters.

It keeps it all open and keeps wildlife and humans in their respective lanes. If you stray out of your lane, you have things like this to deal with…

I spotted it at our coffee and flapjack break…

It looks ready to pounce and give us a good old mauling, until it got camera-shy and scuttled off.

If you would like to sponsor a bacon brunch for us bunch of renegades, feel free to click on the buy-me-a-coffee link and we will love you forever…

We had a lovely visit from one of our long-term supporters.

Pat came down on his mobility scooter. Firstly, it was great to see an old friend, and secondly, it was superb to see how easily he could move about on the trail. “A Path For Everyone” being one of our three core pillars.

Lastly, in the autumn, we want to knock back the scrub loads and get more wildflower-rich grass.

Less of the first photo and more of the second and third photos.

Dunchurch Bridleway

You will see now why I was doing everything possible to not strim today.

Ian and me met on Friday and did a quick bench repair.

And then we strimmed about 250 metres back.

I realised that the blooming bracken had gone from nothing to six feet high in the space of about a month, so I set about reclaiming our path over the next three days, and 700 metres.

It was hard graft, and I will never let it catch me out again. We especially don’t like bracken because it outcompetes everything else, has little wildlife value, and harbours ticks that will attach themselves to humans quicker than anything, and start sucking on your blood…

After being thoroughly broken by this jungle, I strimmed around the benches to keep people safe from the blood-sucking critters.

It was an experience…

The next one is next Wednesday, back at the birdfeeder clearing in Cawston.

Until then!

Paul