Rain Is Promised For The Weekend

I actually cannot remember when it last rained…

We had a bit of a split week, where we ran an impromptu workday on the Saturday morning.

Nathan, Ian, Steve, Dave, Paul, and a cameo appearance from Andrew, worked to get a bench that was gifted to us, and a bit worse for wear, into some sort of usable condition.

We had to strip it down to the basic A-frame, which took half of the session.

A quick hydration break with Aqua Pura, our preferred natural mineral water from the rolling hills of Cumbria.

Before cracking on…

Hopefully, the bench will give our visitors and us many years of service.

We’ll use the timber that came off it in a future project, so the recycle-reuse-repair box gets a big green tick.

The nice thing about this session was that we were all working together in the same location, rather than being strung out tens of metres apart down the path.

So onto today…

Only four of us made it this morning. Mark, Andrew, Ram, and Paul. Everyone else was either having to work for a living, had childcare duties, or was holidaying.

We had planned to get about 600 metres done, but only managed about 400 metres, which is fine.

I love the little wooded bit along this part of the path. It just adds to the biodiversity and stuff.

We broke for coffee and biscuits at half-time.

This is when we all slow down and really enjoy the views, a bit of banter, and kinda just connecting like blokes should. It’s that Men’s Mental Wellbeing bit that is so missing in today’s grind of life.

We cracked on…

This is the connector path between the Cawston Greenway and Dunchurch Bridleway. The plan is to make it a proper cycle path in about 2029/30, so we have a few years to widen it and keep it open.

And this is why we do what we do…

Two lovely ladies came by doing the Geocaching Trail. This just fills our hearts with joy. You can find out all about Geocaching with the link on the right. Our trail goes from Cawston all the way into Dunchurch, and then loops round back to the start. Many thanks to Andrew for making this happen.

Sadly, our little bench got wrecked.

It is what it is… Totally beyond repair. I will probably knock up a replacement at some point. I think a new one costs me about £9 in timber, or something like, so it’s no biggie. This was made out of scraps of old wood so it is no loss other than the inconvenience.

Lastly for the morning, the views.

Corn on one side and wheat on the other, I assume??

It’s just to die for. I cannot put into words how blooming great it is to be out here.

Actually, one other thing – a lovely person called Alison did a buy me a coffee and bought us 50 coffees. That is £250 in funds. My first thought was to jump on the next plane to Spain and live a life of Riley for the next six weeks, but, sadly, sensibility got the better of me.

Thank you so much, Alison.

Click on the link on the right if you would like to support us.

Moving on into the afternoon…

We had planned to put a brace on the bench that we worked on at the weekend. There was a slight wobble, probably only about 5mm or so, but it was bugging the hell out of me.

However, I had childcare duties in the afternoon due to the blooming school summer holidays starting.

Could I leave the bench and hope that it holds up, or would my OCD get the better of me?

I had to do something…