Welcome back, everybody, to a beautiful autumn morning.
Ten autumnal arborists made it out on what was a bit of a blip in the weather. Matt, Andrew, Ian, Reece, Ram, Dave, Marcus, Steve, Martin, and Paul. We had a decent temperature of about 7 °C+ to work in, which is a far cry from the 3 °C over the last few days, and bonus: it didn’t rain, despite being forecast.
Connector Path:
This is the last session on this bit before we move back up the path towards Berrybanks and The Bear pub. We just need it to be open and comfortable to walk or cycle along.
The path actually leads to the old Dunchurch railway station, but as you can see, we go off to the left before we get to it, to connect with Dunchurch Bridleway. However, we did strim about 50 metres down towards it.
This is how it looked in its heyday.
It has long been converted into a residential home. What a great place to live!
We broke for coffee and the last of our chocolate digestives from Waitrose.
We held a two-minute silence at 11am for Remembrance Day (Armistice Day).
The end result of the morning was good. It’s just enough for it to work.
We don’t want to be spending any more energy on this section for reasons that I will make clear in a minute or two.
Dunchurch Bridleway:
I spent a little bit of time here and was quite disappointed to see my previously strimmed path all overgrown again!!
This bridleway would have been a very busy coaching route from the centre of the village to the railway station. The thought of how many people would have come along here is pretty mind-blowing.
The wet and mild weather has tricked everything into growing like it’s spring. It has to calm down sooner or later. It feels like we are chasing our tails a bit.
Draycote to Far Popehill Spinney:
Me and Mike pushed on and we are now 550 metres in.
This leads to the Dunchurch railway station, which is about 2km northwards, and connects to the National Cycle Network 41 in a southward direction and goes to Leamington Spa.
It’s been a bit foggy!! Blooming spooky when stuck out in the middle of the countryside.
But we cracked on…
As with the connector path, we are not trying to rip everything out. What we are trying to do is create a 2-metre-wide path so people can walk or cycle unhindered.
We get a very small number of people telling us that we are wrecking it for wildlife…?
The organisation that owns the path and is creating the tarmac multi-user trail from Leamington to Rugby, and have started on the next section.
Now you can see why we don’t want to be spending loads of time on these bits. When the time comes, everything is ripped out.
Owl Box:
Matt and his Dad have made an owl box. We hope to install it next week.
This is for Tawny Owls and just adds another dimension to the biodiversity of our path.
We are all really looking forward to seeing this being used and listening to the hoots of the owls.
Mental Wellbeing:
Christmas is closing in, and it always appears that everyone is having a wonderful time, whilst maybe you are not.
Now is the time to put things in place to make it a good one.
If I could go back to those lonely days and change something, I would rally all the other people who are maybe struggling and organise a communal litter-pick or something similar on Christmas Day morning, followed by a gathering in a pub.
It’s so easy to do this sort of thing with social media.
Being around other people is half the battle.
Well, that’s it for this week.
Thanks for reading if you got this far.
Until next time!
Paul
