We can safely say that we are fully into Spring, although a couple of my friends commented that they had to scrape ice or frost off their car windscreens in the early hours of Monday and Tuesday. Despite the cold starts, we are looking at about midday temps of 15 C (60 F) on the cooler days, so all is good.

Nine strimming superstars made it out on what is the cusp of it all going madly green and growing like crazy. Dave, Ian, Marcus, Steve, Martin, Reece, Andrew, Mark, and Paul got tooled up and ready for the task ahead.

This first cut is so important because it shows the line between the path edge, the wildflower-rich grassy margin, and the scrub.

If we strim up to the scrub, we ruin the habitat for a huge number of insects, and stop the wildflowers from going to seed and creating a crop in future years.

I think we pretty much nailed it.

We had a load of strimmers on the go. It was good. We have bought three more, so we have gone from five to eight. Loads of firepower!!

We broke for coffee and ginger-nut biscuits at half-time.

Always a laugh and good banter before cracking on.

We covered about 650 metres today, which is about 20% of the whole 3.6 km path. At this rate, we will keep it all under control.

We made an extra effort to strim around the benches.

Nobody wants ants in their pants when perched at one of our lovely relaxation points.

We also did a bit of work on our picnic benches at the other end.

It’s just worth the effort to keep them screwed together nice and tight. A lot of these benches are getting on for 10 years old, and I am so pleased that we have looked after them so well.

We had a bench come loose that was in a bit of an odd position, so we took it out, gave it some TLC, and will put it in somewhere else next week.

This one was put in by Cawston Girl Guides a long time ago.

We also had some offcuts of timber given to us by our good friend, Patrick. I couldn’t resist making something out of them.

This is me in my element.

The offcuts of the offcuts are going to my friend, Debbie, who will use them in her woodburner.

Recycle, reuse, repair…

I love it.

In other news, the bridge across the Fosse Way, which is right at the other end of the whole trail (we do the first 3.6 km), has been installed.

At some point, we will connect to the cycle route that runs from Rugby to Leamington Spa. Something that we have been waiting a long time for.

And lastly, a litter pick that was very rewarding…

Rewarding because there was almost no litter!!

Butterflies Spotted

Wildflowers Spotted

A quick up and down of part of the section that we were on today.

Lovely and wide, so people can walk side-by-side and have a conversation.

That’s it for this week.

Until next time!

Paul