What is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year came and went. Blue Monday, supposedly the 3rd Monday of the New Year. Apparently, a lot of people have run out of money due to Christmas overspending, the weather being totally gloomy, and everyone’s New Year’s resolutions have gone for a burton, so there is not much to be happy about.

It really is a recipe for disaster if you start to dwell on the rubbishness of it all.

But we all seem to have managed our way through it unscathed.

Even the weather played ball.

As of 8am this morning, the forecast was saying that there was a 92% chance of rain. Not a drop came down for the whole session.

Despite scratching my head at how wrong the weather forecasters can be, when they have but one job, I was secretly, incredibly thankful, because it was horribly wet underfoot, so it had rained a lot previously.

Despite the soggy outlook, nine of us braved a good old soaking. Matt, Ram, Marcus, Dave, Andrew, Martin, Steve, Ian, and Paul. Some of us brought waterproof clothing, so that definitely ensured that there would be no rain…

We cracked on with the butterfly clearing.

Ideally, the ground needs to be cleared totally, but we are running out of places to dump all the brash (cuttings), so some trees are going to have to stay. We cleared more of the overhang, so we now just need to wait until spring and summer and see what comes up.

Over the summer a lot of what we have piled up will drop as the smaller branches rot away. The wildlife value that all of this dead wood will bring will be enormous. So many insect larvae will burrow into it and eventually become food for birds and other wildlife. We can already see robins and other small birds hopping about under the cover of the brash, foraging for a meal.

At half-time we broke for hot coffee.

Martin did the honours and kept us all warm and watered.

And then we started to have a bit of a tidy up.

The bank looking from the top, and then from the bottom.

And up and down the path.

As we can see, there are huge swathes to green up with wildflowers and grass. It’s gonna look good.

We started drilling holes into the stumps to help them to rot down.

The impact driver broke so we had to stop. We now have a new one, so we will carry on next week.

The good thing with sticking with Wickes is that all of the batteries fit across our whole range of tools.

We also found a decent-looking fungus.

And we also discovered this strange, almost glowing plant.

Apparently, it’s called Rough-stalked Feather-moss, although it reminded me of Homer Simpson more than anything else.

We also litter-picked.

The more we cut back the scrub, the more we are finding aged litter, and the occasional bit of furniture!!

The next one is on Friday at Dunchurch, and then we are back here next Wednesday for a final sweep through and tidy.

Until then!

Paul