Is it the start of summer? Some might say that the 1st June is indeed the start; however, I prefer to go by the Summer Solstice and work to the 21st June. At present, every bit of vegetation is growing at full pelt as it tries to out-compete its neighbour, which is definitely a spring thing. Come summer, and everything stops growing and starts flowering.

Sadly, the beautiful heat that we had last week has gone fully into reverse, and we find ourselves back in mid-to-high teens, temperature-wise.

Perhaps what is more worrying is the rain forecast.

It’s not exactly barbecue weather, which is what summer days should be all about…

The weather forecast actually lived up to its prediction this morning, and we got a bit wet, but it still seemed subtropical due to it being pretty humid, and we felt like we were in the middle of a rainforest.

Seven jungle rangers turned out. Ram, Marcus, Steve, Reece, Ian, Andrew, and Paul. We normally do up the off-ramp and make our way across a strip of ground to get to the Dunchurch Bridleway, but we have had repeated requests to push further southwards.

The third photo is what lies ahead…

We gingerly pushed onwards by about 200 metres.

Coats were going on to keep the rain off, then being taken off because it was so humid and sweaty, but we managed to fashion a bit of a path through.

During our break, the rain really came down, and we lost Reece in the jungle.

Hot coffee and Maryland cookies, which always makes me laugh because Maryland is pronounced totally differently in the US.

Fuelled up, we pushed on.

It was steadily getting wetter and wetter, but we managed another 200 metres, so we covered 400 metres in total. Pretty good going, seeing as we didn’t have a clue what to expect and didn’t really have the right tools.

We will keep going as far as Draycote village, which is what everyone seems to want.

In other news, some baffoon pushed our Potford Dam picnic bench over the edge.

Pulled back up by Ram and me, with plenty of fuel via our new protein drink…

Whilst we were messing around with the benches, we managed to give two of our rectangular picnic tables a fresh coat of stain.

All of our benches used to be a beautiful golden-brown, but due to graffiti, they now have to be poo-brown.

Sorry, not sorry…

We also prepared all the benches on the northern end for staining.

We’re not in any mad hurry, but as long as they are done by the end of June, just to keep everything looking fresh and inviting.

All in all, a pretty good start to our campaign to just get this last bit nailed and have us actually link up to the National Cycle Network. I have told Railway Paths Ltd (the land owners) what we are doing, and their signage allows us to be here.

And lastly, we have some trees that are sprouting shoots from the trunks, so we need to deal with these very quickly.

If left, the tree starts to look like a bush.

To finish, a Welsh Poppy has somehow found its way to us.

How cool is that!!

Dunchurch Bridleway:

Just Ian and me this week due to clashing with other work going on further down the line.

We got to the picnic bench, which is where we got to from the other end last time, and also did the Right of Way that goes around the Windmill Farm field.

If people are wondering why we are so obsessed with keeping the two-metre-wide path open, this is what happens to the bit that we leave.

Nobody in their right mind wants to walk through that and get bitten to death by the insects, and as you can see, we don’t destroy the pollen-rich wildflowers.

Lastly, we enjoyed coffee and the views before cracking on…

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Until next time!

Paul