This is the start of the 2026/27 cutting-back season. What we do over the next six months will shape how the path looks for humans and wildlife in the spring and summer of 2027, so a bit of planning is required.
We also have our framework in the tab above, called September Jobs, where we split the trail into five sections and try to match the longer sections to months with five Wednesdays.
It worked really well last year, so we are following the same format.
As part of my intensive research, I felt that I had to spend a week in an actual forest to really understand what we are looking to emulate.
Notice the tree spacing, lack of lower branches, thriving understorey, and ground cover.
The Workday:
Despite my absence, the lads cracked on. Marcus, Reece, Dave, Matt, and Andrew turned out on a morning that was threatening rain!!
Me, being my usual muppet self, had not managed to organise passing the tools to the guys, so they had to make do with a selection of gardening implements.
Pushing back the scrub and brambles before breaking for coffee and cookies.
Loads of traffic along the path whilst schoolboys enjoyed climbing the mature oak trees. I didn’t think kids did this sort of thing anymore… They are all back to school later this week, so a last-gasp attempt at freedom.
More cutting back followed the coffee break.
Really nice to see that the greenway machine worked just as well without me being there, but also quite a weird feeling.
I really must learn to let go a bit…
Buy Me A Coffee/Patron:
Lovely donations from Shindi (£15) and Simon (£5 monthly sub) this week, and we also have Paul signing up as a Patron subscriber in the last month (£5/m). Thank you very much. We have a new tool, which these generous donations have gone towards. We will get it out next week and show everyone what it does. If you would like to help, just click on Buy Me A Coffee. It really does give us a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
Far Popehill Spinney and beyond:
Looking southwards, the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust are about to clear the path from Marton to Birdingbury.
This is the yellow-ringed section. They have already done the blue-ringed section.
There needs to be a tunnel built to get through this bit…
And hopefully we will get permission to work on the green-ringed bit on the map above.
The section between the yellow ring and the green ring is already a crushed limestone path surface, so potentially, we could have a through-path to Leamington by early next year, in one form or another…
Mile Marker Posts:
Another huge step forward by Martin and Dave.
All will become clear in a week or two.
I did the weekly litter pick the weekend before, and found a dead hedgehog. Bad news that it was dead, but good news that we have them.
We can contact Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and do a proper hedgehog survey in a couple of weeks to see what is happening.
Well, that’s about it for this week. Next week I shall be back from my all-expenses-paid “research” trip, and we can crack on…
And of course I’m joking about a paid holiday, before anyone gets their knickers in a twist. I don’t even get free coffee and biscuits on the workdays!
Until next time!
Paul
I like the mile markers, so fancy! That muddy part of the trail is not a place I would ride. How sad the tires (American spelling) are left there, ridiculous! Enjoy your holiday!
Yeah, the mile markers will look good when we put them in. The tyres are used by someone to try and create a raised path, or retaining wall, I think. It’s about 200 metres (600+ ft) do you use feet and inches in the US??? 😀 of horribleness that we will need to sort out over the winter!! Urgh!! 😦
It doesn’t look like anything but dead tires to me. We use inches, pounds and feet here but some situations use metric. I think we are the only country left that doesn’t use the metric system exclusively. I have never understood the metric system at all… I’m a Boomer, I don’t recall metric being taught back then. I’m 65…
I use a mixture of feet, inches and metres, which probably totally confuses everyone. Younger people will just use metric, and I notice on tape measures that they have dropped the feet and inches and are just metric now.
Wow, its unfortunate that feet and inches have been dropped. I understand why people think metric is better but it’s not needed. My tape measure is all in feet and inches…
Looks like the lads did an admirable job while you were ‘researching.’ Bravo to everyone! 2027 looks to be good along the trail.
Haha!! 😀 I’m redundant… 😀
Delegating doesn’t come easily for perfectionists, does it? It’s nice to know that you have a reliable, engaged crew, though, and that they carry on with the work even when you can’t make it.
I look forward to watch your vision turn into reality.
I’m starting to see that a lot of the guys have skills that are far greater than mine, in their areas of chosen expertise. I guess that has always been the case, but as we take on more and more, it has become more apparent to me.
Hopefully, I can get ChatGPT to visualise what is in my head ready for next week.
it can be hard to delegate but good to know that for the most part, things will work themselves out. then, you begin to wonder if they can do it without you and get used to that!) they did a great job
They did a cracking job – more holidays required, I think 😀
Pingback: The Saturday Blogroll Recap, September 5 2026 – Chuck The Writer