One Half of a Pincer Movement

Oh my days… I really don’t know what has happened to the weather.

Last week, we felt like we were well on our way to warmer days as we nudged towards summer. This week, the temperature has crashed to about 2°C (35°F) in the mornings with frost on shed roofs. To add insult to injury, we had sudden downpours as the wind whipped up.

It was a bit brutal, to say the least.

However, eight combatants turned out as we continued with our push across no-man’s land.

Marcus, Steve, Matt, Dave, Martin, Andrew, Mark, and Paul continued with our charge southward.

It was all going swimmingly with blue skies and decent views. We were making huge progress, and I worried that we might finish the task a bit too early and have nothing to do.

We broke for coffee and a selection of old-fashioned boiled sweets that Matt had discovered somewhere in the north of England, or maybe even Scotland.

This was the point when the weather turned. We suddenly had horizontal rain and a howling wind. It was so savage that we actually thought about packing up and going home.

But of course, we soldiered on like the troopers that we are.

We got to the off-ramp that takes us across about 60 metres of what seems like waste ground. The path (Right of Way) from the other end is supposed to link up with this trail, and that connects Dunchurch Bridleway and Cawston Greenway. I think it’s about 400 metres.

It just requires footfall and the Council Department who look after the footpaths to keep it clear and open. I have requested that they make the 60 metres across the waste ground into an official Right of Way, but heard nothing back.

I tried!!

Myself and Andrew were some 600 metres south of where we started. Our strimmer batteries were getting really low, and the weather was turning nasty for the second time. We just managed to finish pushing the vegetation off the path before heading back.

This is a snapshot of what we have done. A path that can take two people side-by-side, a decent pollinator strip, and the scrub towards the sides.

When the weather cleared for the umpteenth time, I popped back and just took some photos of the whole connector path.

If people want to carry on beyond the off-ramp – good luck!!

It gets very boggy and wet, so I never venture down there.

And whilst I was in a little pocket of sunshine, I took some quick shots of the views.

And yes, it did start raining again shortly afterwards!!

The warehousing is there, and we cannot do anything about it, so we just have to work with it. We have loads of wildflowers starting to pop up in the pollinator strips, so it’s going to look lovely and be alive with bees and butterflies.

I’m just glad that we got to the end of this side, despite the weather throwing everything at us. On Friday, we are on the other side and will close the pincer movement, pushing the Dunchurch Bridleway up to the point where this path kinda lies in between and is a bit of a thorn in our side.

We got through almost all of our batteries today.