Six of us turned out today in what must be the last throes of summer. Ian, Martin, Dave, Marcus, Andrew, and Paul.

Andrew rescued our Geocaching trail last year, and details can be found in the side menu. Terrific fun for people and families. The trail runs the whole length of the greenway, and the Dunchurch Bridleway, too. A good 5-mile circular route to blow away the cobwebs.

Firstly, we are quite into our “Connecting Communities” tag-line. I just want to explain what that means.

This is the 3.5-mile trail that we have created. It connects the Admirals part of Bilton, Cawston, Dunchurch, and Thurlaston (with a bit of a stretch). It’s all off-road and is designed for walking and cycling. There is a Public Right of Way back through the woods to make the 5-mile circular walk.

Today we met at the Bethal Bench and worked northwards to where we got to last week.

It’s all very narrow and unhealthy ash trees that are growing way too densely.

Nothing is going to mature into a decent tree with good girth when the only way to grow is upwards. We hope that what is left will slow down in the race to the sky and put on decent width.

The section south of the Bethal Bench is where we don’t cut back any trees, so we can hang up our saws for a week. The reason is the adjacent housing.

The dense tree cover provides a noise buffer for the road. We will be clearing some of the ivy and low brambles to encourage wildflowers, but the trees have never been cut back on this section by us.

We broke for coffee and a good old chat.

It’s nice that we can chat and have a laugh, but not in that masculine “banter” way, that is so braggy, bullsh*ty, and competitive. It’s the way forward, trust me.

The rewards of our labour of love.

So many people are using the path, and everyone is so happy with the light and airiness of it. We have so much footfall that we have made warning signs at each end of where we are working.

I don’t think people really took that much notice, though!

A quick YouTube of part of the first 300 metres of this section.

I like it. People can walk two or three abreast and not feel like they are in a big green tunnel.

We also did a bit of strimming around the benches on the southern end.

Nobody wants an insect going up their trouser leg looking for a warm place to hibernate.

And a very kind person is filling up our bird-feeders.

We had a bench given to us by a lovely lady called Jacquie and sadly in got ransacked, twice.

A friend of Jacquie saw it dumped down the bank, recovered it, and fixed it up for a fourth time.

It’s so nice that people care so much about stuff like this.

Not all heroes wear capes – thank you, G, for doing this.

Dunchurch Bridleway

A wet morning brought just me and Dave out. We had a “shall we bother” moment, but we cracked on…

We ended up covering a fair old distance, spurred on with hot coffee and custard cream biscuits.

I think just 200-metres left on this bit, before tackling the 600-metres on the most westerly end.

It’s all fun, fun, fun!!

Until next time!

Paul