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Eight of us turned out on a morning where rain was threatening from about 11 o’clock. Reece, Marcus, Steve, Martin, Mark, Ian, Matt, and Paul. We had a bit of bench maintenance to do, and a lot of path maintenance.
Strangely, everyone grabbed the strimmers and Zubat saws and left me and Reece to work out how to unassemble the benches.
The first bench has been bugging my OCD for ages. Every time I look at the thing, I cringe.
The seats don’t match. For some reason I cannot buy the size of the original wood off-the-shelf, so we were forced to use a different size.
We had rot on the next bench so I thought of a cunning plan…
Take the seat from the first bench to replace the rotting slats on the second bench, and replace taken seat with the same wood from our local DIY store, Wickes – utter genius!!
Sometimes I amaze myself at my ability to think so far out of the box.
We broke for coffee and flapjack at half-time.
I like these moments because it gives us a chance to chat, bond and just have a laugh. If you want to see us eating more bacon, you can always sponsor our brunch via buy-me-a-coffee. The last donations that we had were from Tony, Bev and Julie and after we take a slice off the top for our next cooked breakfast, we are going to use the remainder for “mile marker posts” as a nod to the railway heritage of the path. Thank you very much for your generosity, it really is appreciated.
Geek Time
Unfortunately for some, it’s that geeky time of the month.
We have had some very thoughtful friends go abroad and click on the blog. Ruth is actually at the Faroe Islands as I type. I follow her blog and wish that I could write just 20% as well as she is able to. Have a look and subscribe if you like it, which I know you will. It’s called walkingaway and is brilliant!
Andrew, who does the superb geocaching trails on both Cawston and Dunchurch paths went to Jersey a couple of weeks ago and made sure we got a click.
So that takes us to a super geeky 135 countries who have tuned into the blog – world domination is inching closer and closer…
Right, that’s enough geek! Back to it…
The remaining six of us strimmed and gently cut back branches that were overhanging onto the path. I think we covered about 600 metres or maybe slightly less.
When we have the numbers it becomes so easy to rip through it and keep the width, so pedestrians and cyclists can share without bothering each other.
Talking of cyclists, we are seeing a lot of mum, dad and child on bikes and also groups of kids, which really warms my heart. My whole childhood back in the 1970s was out on our bikes just exploring and discovering. This is a safe off-road place to do just that.
We have someone leaving cryptic messages on some of our pedestal benches.
I cannot quite summon the energy to work out what they mean, but I guess it brightens the place up a bit??
Lastly,we litter picked the whole path and amazingly, the rain didn’t show up, as per the forecast…
Not bad for two miles, but let’s see what happens over the school holidays before I start to blow my trumpet too hard…
Next week we are at Berrybanks with a bit of a bench story, and then we are going to the Bear pub to work out a bit of a plan for Sept to March, and enjoy a bit of lunch.
Until then!
Paul
Cawston Greenway 
Nice work on the bench! There used to be a Wickes when I was younger, it’s been gone a long time. The 70s were great!! My friends and I rode our bikes what must have been miles from home, our parents never knew!
Those days were great, weren’t they. So carefree and easy. And every kid knew how to fix their bike when it broke…
We sure did! We made bikes from parts of other bikes too. Good days!
The dad of the kids up the road from me had gas welding gear in his workshop and would quite happily weld our busted frames back together. Nowadays, everything is just thrown away. I doubt most people even know how to change the fuse in a plug… 😀
That was so nice of that man! We liked to jump our bikes which is of course very tough on the frames. It’s sad that we have a throw away society today. So wasteful.
It is. I remember my gran having tins upon tins of buttons that had been snipped off old clothes, and fabric that was the back of a shirt or part of an old pair or trousers. Repair, reuse, recycle was such a healthy ethos and was just a thing that everyone did… 😀
That’s really nice, we seem (here) to have that throw it away attitude instead of reusing things. That’s shameful!
Brilliant thinking on the benches, they look great. And congratulations on getting a follower from the Faroe Islands, something most of us can only dream of. 🙂
Yep, I’m much happier now that the benches look balanced and stuff. Funny how little things can irk us so much… 😀
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You’re so patient and tolerant whenever the gremlins strike. But you fellas did a great job refurbishing that picnic table. Well done.
Being men, we like to fix things 😀 Seriously though, it’s good to get stuff fixed now. September is the start of the cutting back season and we are gonna be very busy!! 😀