A Tale of Two Halves

Posted on June 7, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Whilst we were back at the Potford Dam end, with delightful views over Lawford Heath, I was reminded of the day that David, the Ecologist from Sustrans came to help. He brought cookies and Lady’s Bedstraw seeds, and we brought coffee. Obviously we didn’t eat the bedstraw seeds whilst feasting on cookies and coffee… It was early in 2019 and we had just started our new mini-wildflower glade. We also had the second of our world-famous round picnic tables to build.

The wildflower glade is now pretty much self-sufficient with a really good mix of flora and fauna.

We have gently pushed it out over the years to make it slightly larger. That was, until this year, when something came over me and I decided that it needed to be twice the size.

Feast your eyes on this…

Now, for a second, cast your mind back to last week. I was explaining about how the wildflower glade that Charlie is creating for his DofE is taking time to get going. We can see exactly the same here, one side is into its 5th year and the other side is just starting its 1st year. The Lady’s Bedstraw took until last year to come up, so 4 years of the seed sitting in the ground and just pondering and a kinda “will I, won’t I” sort of conversation with itself…

I guess what I’m trying to say, in a round-about sort of way, is that Rome wasn’t built in a day and these things do require buckets and buckets of patience. Not my strongest trait by a long long way, but Mother Nature ain’t gonna be rushed, regardless of how hard I stamp my feet and shout obscenities at the ground. Ooh, a mental vision of Basil Fawlty just popped into my head and now it won’t go away!!

Whilst I’m in a wistful and nostalgic look back at the wildflower glade creation and bench-building kinda place, let’s for a minute, talk about the bench. It’s had a tough life, being thrown down the bank a couple of times and had the seats ripped off, when the mob of angry squirrels have had too much fighting-juice. But it always rises from the ashes and comes back stronger.

I’m just really happy with how we have looked after this one, and all the benches on the greenway. All too often I see wooden picnic benches that are scabby and rotten, almost continually damp and covered in a sort of mossy lichen that leaves a hideous green rash-like stain on your trousers when you sit down. So well done, team. Give yourselves a virtual slap-on-the-back, or indeed, a real one, if you have long enough arms!!

I bet you just tried to give yourself a slap on the back. I did, and I wrote the blooming thing…

We’re going to stencil “CAWSTONGREENWAY.CO.UK” on all of the picnic benches when our stencil set arrives though the post. Hopefully one of us will discover some artistic flair, or this could turn out to be a very messy disaster. The pressure is on… However, if we can pull it off, imagine people sitting at the benches reading the blog about the very benches that they are sitting on. In my strange and geeky mind, I find that quite amusing.

Until next week!

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Attack of the Stinging Nettles

Posted on May 31, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Arrgh!!! Our butterfly bank has a huge mass of nettles growing on it!!

I really don’t want to be doing the mass pulling-up of the prickly things, like last time. As much as we cover our hands and arms, we get stung badly.

The tree-hugging nettle-lovers tell us that they are great for nettle tea, or nettle jam, or even nettles in a salad!!

In an effort to get me to be a little less nettle-hating, the next thing they’ll do is make beer from the rash-inducing little blighters…

Incredibly, they already have! And they have stuck a picture of a cheeky little badger on the front to make me go “aaah”!! This is underhandedness of the highest order. It will probably take a case, or four, to sway me.

Of course, I am not that much of a blithering idiot to not know that certain butterflies rely on the nettles for egg-laying, and then their caterpillars somehow happily munch through the things without getting stung in the slightest.

Red Admiral, Comma, Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell all rely on the humble plant to survive.

  • Butterfly Bank
  • Peacock
  • Red Admiral
  • Small Tortoiseshell
  • Comma

The first lesson that we were taught, whilst breaking our backs on the path was, “don’t fight nature”. It’s such an utter waste of time and effort, because the minute you turn your back, nature kicks you in the backside. Balance, is the way forwards, so I will embrace the nettles whilst trying to find something that will give them a good old run for their money, and give us a bit of colour.

Anyway, back to the tasks in hand…

We did a bit of work on the new temporary path that connects with Cawston Bridleway. It’s now a lot more airy and slightly wider. Nothing makes people feel more anxious and uneasy, than a narrow and overgrown path where you cannot see where you’re going.

We also litter-picked and tried to snip back bramble runners, before breaking off for a cup of pick-me-up juice in our all-terrain mugs.

This is our new bench, kindly donated by the Heart of England Co-Op Helping Hearts Awards Scheme, who we are eternally grateful to, for their ongoing support and generosity (blog post to follow for the installation).

A couple of new butterflies spotted for this year.

  • Holly Blue
  • Small Copper

I have updated iRecord to keep the wildlife flora and fauna boffins happy.

Charlie’s DofE wildflower clearing is slowly becoming established. It’s just a bit of a waiting game, but it will get there. If you look at how rich the older wildflower glades are, I kid you not, when I tell you that they all started off looking a bit bare. Keep the faith, Charlie. It will happen.

Well that’s about it for this week.

Pop along and say hello if you’re out and about.

Until next time!

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Any Excuse For Coffee

Posted on May 24, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Today we thought we might try and fix our leaky plumbing. It was not to be, so we cracked open the coffee and enjoyed the pick-me-up juice in our all-terrain mugs…

We think the issue with the plumbing is that the hole is simply too small, when it’s literally bucketing down cats and dogs.

As all three of us stood there staring vacantly at the muddy culvert, it dawned on us that the only way to see what is really happening, is for one of us to be down there when the April monsoon starts. That blithering idiot will probably be me, so I better get some wellies.

After our caffeine-induced wake-up shot, we litter-picked all the way to the end, or is it the start. I get so confused with my left and right, up and down, start and end… But we pulled out two bags of grot (plus one from last week) and snipped back any encroaching vegetation.

It’s all looking rather good down this end. A bit more of a woody feel to it, I think.

We have something brewing to hopefully add to this area. Keep your eyes peeled…

You may have noticed my other projects in the thingy on the right. Blackwood Avenue Spinney is a rather lovely nature walk right in the middle of urbanisation, Dunchurch Nature Trail connects with Cawston Greenway and has some super views and coffee shops (Solstice), Dunchurch Pantry is something that I am so proud of, and the Autism Adventure Workshops is the next thing that I really want to turn my attention to and get it moving again. We had such fun with it literally the week before COVID hit and the lockdowns started…

Check them out, you might find something that piques your interest and encourages you to get involved.

That’s about it from us lot.

Until next time!

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Sad News…

Posted on May 17, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Mick has passed away.

Mick has been with us since day one, some 14 years ago, and was a regular contributor on workdays. He brought a vast amount of knowledge and steered us to the middle-ground, where he developed our love and appreciation for nature and wildlife, whilst we were all gung-ho rookies trying to blast the path through. Mick will be sadly missed by all of us.

RIP, friend.

The Greenway Team

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Christmas has come early…

Posted on May 3, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

I somehow acquired a Douglas Fir Christmas tree. It was being sold off on Christmas Eve for £3 so I grabbed it and stuck it outside my house for the festive holiday.

It then sat in a pot, on my patio, with nowhere to call home. After liaising with the Sustrans Land Manager, Martyn, we agreed that it could go on the greenway. It’s at the bottom of the embankment so that should help to “absorb” some of the size that it may grow to.

What’s the betting that I will be unable to resist sticking Christmas lights on it in December!!

Next we replaced the couple of missing Geocaching containers.

The caches have been found 1,724 times in little over a year of the geocaching trail existing. It’s a six-mile trek there-and-back, with 12 to find. Better to do odd numbers outbound and even numbers on the way back, or it becomes a bit of a trudge to get back to the start.

And then we got the Dino Trail back working. A mob of angry squirrels had knocked four of the disks off. Three have probably been eaten, so we used spare disks to at least get the thing sorted for now. Just click on the tab above to see how it works. Great fun for young children and all the disks are by benches, so parents can sit and chill.

To end, we enjoyed coffee and cookies, and basked in the lull before the storm, when everything starts going absolutely barmy.

I have another project that has been on the back-burner for what seems like ages.

Blackwood Avenue Spinney.

It used to be a grand tree-lined driveway to a mansion house before Admirals Estate was built. The plan is to make three path loops and clear out all the rubbish.

I found a pocket of time today, so started strimming the path and just getting the feel of the land. It’s gonna be a good-un, so join in if you wanna get in at the start. Just click on the facebook link on the right and follow the page.

Flora and fauna spotted this week on the greenway…

  • Speckled Wood
  • Orange-tip
  • Greater Bee Fly
  • Thyme-leaved Speedwell

I have updated iRecord for the wildlife boffins.

That’s about it for this week.

Until next time!

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We finished re-staining the benches…

Posted on April 26, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Today, we cracked on with re-staining the rest of our bench collection with my mate, who does what it says on the tin, Ronseal. And it didn’t rain!!! There’s a first!!

Don’t they look absolutely divine. Simple, yet elegant design, apart from the one near the underpass wildflower clearing, and every one of them has a view to die for. The reason the underpass bench lacks the elegance of the others, is because crowds of crazed teenagers hang around the underpass when it’s raining, and I couldn’t risk spending money on something that might get vandalised after a few cans of the fighting juice. The wood was found in a skip and the brackets holding it together cost just £1.28 in total. I can live with losing that, but thankfully it has survived attempts to set it on fire and stuff, despite looking like it came out of a 1970’s park in Moscow.

Whilst I happily painted away, Marcus and David litter picked two bags of grot. I finished first, so I build a little habitat pile out of sticks.

It all helps the little creatures find a comfy home.

After that we bumped into Mick and had a good old chinwag. Muggins here was so excited to see Mick, that I forgot to take photos of the bags of grot, but believe me when I say they were heaving.

We also had our weekender this week, where Charlie is creating a wildflower-rich clearing for his DofE Silver Award.

Grubbing out bramble-roots and then seeding with a wildflower seed mix.

Proof indeed that I don’t just hang around taking photos of everyone else.

It’s gonna look fantastic! Well done so far, Charlie.

And that, really, was that!! I popped down to Draycote Meadow afterwards to see if we are on the right track.

It’s possibly a bit early in the year to draw any inspiration yet. But I will keep checking it out.

We have some pretty massive stuff happening over May and June so watch this space. I think you will be amazed, and the tag-line, more than just a path, will really come into its own.

Thanks for reading and until next time!

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Playing Farmers

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

It’s always a tremendous feeling to be at the start of a wildflower-glade creation. Sowing the seeds that we collected last summer, and adding new seeds to the mix, to try to increase the biodiversity.

To not do this means we are left with a much reduced diversity and a drab block of aging bramble scrub from start to finish, with nothing really happening underneath it.

What we want, instead, is a mixture of wildflower-rich grassland, young bramble scrub that is up to three years old, and hedges at the edges.

Obviously, we cannot eat the wildflowers, well we could if we put them in a salad, but we do provide food in the form of nectar for pollinators, and we do harvest seeds ready for next year, so in effect, we are doing the farmering bit, from sowing to harvesting.

Unfortunately, muggins made the typical school-boy error of forgetting a mattock to grub out the bramble roots. Leaving the roots means we will be overrun with the wretched stuff by mid summer.

Grubbing the roots out with rakes was interesting, to say the least!!

The transition from path to grass, to longer grass, to hedge or scrub is so important for the movement of insects, birds and mammals. Even now, whilst it is still a little cool, there are signs of life.

If you look closely, you can see the trees that I laid into a hedge starting to sprout new growth!! It’s amazing, but I doubt it will win any awards for looking pretty and neat.

Next, we cracked on with staining the last two picnic benches at this end of the trail.

If I had £1 for every time these benches have been tossed down the bank by the angry teenage mob, I’d have enough cash for two pints of lager and a packet of crisps.

Whilst they have served us well over the years, some serious TLC needs to be carried out on them towards the end of the season. Another fun wood-working workshop to look forward to, and we are let-loose with the power-tools again. A win win!

Some early wildflowers popping up, not that I was particularly looking for wildflowers today.

  • Lesser Celandine
  • Ground Ivy
  • Dandelion with Furrow Bee
  • White Dead Nettle
  • Brimstone

All recorded using the iRecord tab above, which feeds into a national database and lets the flora and fauna boffins know what sort of state the UK wildlife is in.

Next one is a weekender at the Heath View bench and then after that it’s at the same bench, staining it, and the others, working northwards.

Until next time!

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Renaming The Benches

Posted on April 12, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

We have some new additions to our bench collection, and some modifications, due to the over-enthusiastic youth trying to wrestle with them last year, after too much fighting juice.

We also have the first of the Spring blossom. The feel-good feeling is enormous!!

There are a couple of funding applications in, for a bench at the butterfly bank, so people can enjoy the area when it’s a riot of insect activity. One way or another, this will happen, so I have included it.

Here is the list (north to south). I will update the map and put the http://www.what3words.com locations so we all know where to find them.

Bear

Berrybanks

Hillfort Pair

Underpass

Quadrant

Bethel

Heath View

Snowdrop

Daffodil Picnic

Bridleway

Butterfly

Birdfeeder Picnic

Tent Picnic

Dainties

Middle Round Picnic

Double Picnic

Potford Dam Picnic

Today we managed to stain Middle Round Picnic and Potford Dam Picnic, despite my over-optimistic head telling us that we could do all four. Don’t sit down or you’ll get a stripey bottom. We did have our greenway-little-helpers, though, so muggins had to somehow keep them amused.

The entertainment, of course, was a litter-pick from the south end to the Cawston Bridleway bridge and back. Not a lot of litter, considering the school holidays and good weather! David found an ASDA shopping basket. It might come in useful for carrying tools on and off the path? Possibly might find it hard to give up my Waitrose bag of magic tricks, though.

Everything is slowly turning green and a few early wildflowers are popping up. I’ve not seen a butterfly yet, but it has been a Gale Force 8 for the last few workdays, so anything that sticks its insect head above the parapet is likely to get it blown right off. Shame the grey squirrels cannot meet with a similar fate.

We did, however, spot our first Bloody Nosed Beetle, thanks to the greenway-little-helpers’ sharp eyes.

I have recorded it on iRecord using the tab above.

The squally views up and down.

I don’t know how, but we managed to dodge the rain completely!!

Next week we are starting in the same place, sowing our wildflower glades with a mixture of new seeds, and what I collected last summer, working northbound. I will bring a rake. We are also going to stain the last two benches at this end.

Until next time!

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You Could Drive A Tank Through That Gap…

Posted on April 5, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

A question often debated, by the various people who claim to know what they are talking about, is how wide should the path be.

We have the one side who would opt for the skinny single-file track, and then the other side who want to chop all the trees down, much to the horror of the people of Cawston.

Personally, I would happily trundle up and down the path in one of those Challenger 2 tanks that have been in the news recently. That would give us a 4-metre wide path and I could take pot-shots at grey squirrels, as I roar through the undergrowth. Nothing would give me quite as much satisfaction as killing two birds with one stone!!

I imagine now, that people think I have gone totally bonkers. Or maybe, there is some sort of logic to my madness. Behold, there is… And it is two-fold…

Firstly, if the path is 3-plus metres wide, people can walk two, three or even four abreast and have one of those old-fashioned things called a conversation, you know, where one person speaks and the other person listens, and then the other person speaks, and so on…

Secondly, the more sunshine that gets onto the path, the drier it makes it for pushchairs and mobility scooter users. It means more wildflowers will grow on the edges, which means more bees, butterflies and other pollinators will enjoy the habitat, which means more birds and mammals, and on, and on…

Oh, and an added brucie bonus – if people can see a good 100-yards ahead of themselves, they feel far less likely that the Cawston bogeyman is going to jump out at them, so feel less intimidated whilst pottering up and down the track.

Today we cracked on with re-staining the benches.

We only managed four, despite me over-optimistically thinking we could do the whole lot in two hours. I was mindful though, of using slow and deliberate strokes, after last year’s near catastrophe when Chris was let loose with a paint brush, and we all went home looking like spotted dick!!

It’s important to us that we look after and maintain the benches. Nobody will want to sit at them if they’re not in tip-top condition. I think we have done a pretty good job here, especially when you notice the battle-scars and war-wounds on each bench, as the stain is re-applied.

Marcus and Reece headed off southwards armed with litter-pickers, and came back with a bounty of litter. Nothing exciting, just the usual grot.

We then enjoyed coffee and cookies using our world-famous Cawston Greenway enamel mugs. People have been asking me when they are going to appear in the shop, and a dude in America wants me to ship one over to him, as soon as they are!!

Loads of people thanking us for the new temporary path up to the Cawston Bridleway. It’s getting a lot of use, so is obviously needed.

That’s about it for this week.

Get out onto the path and enjoy it!

Until next time!

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Nearly Rained Off…

Posted on March 29, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

The blog schedule told us that we were re-staining the benches today. The weather told us different.

I looked at the forecast yesterday and thought it would be rained off, so didn’t bother getting the woodstain. Today looked dry at 9am, so I raced across town like a maniac to get the stain and brushes. It then started raining!! And not just a little bit. It was literally cats and dogs by about 11am.

Luckily, I had a plan B…

The new picnic bench seats were a little bit too springy for my liking. Sitting at it reminded me of a Citroen 2CV that I owned back in 1972. That, probably had wooden suspension, too.

So we fixed the springiness with some blocks that I just so happened to have in my Waitrose bag of magic tricks.

Whilst Kai played with power-tools, I sauntered off to find another job for us to do.

It wasn’t long before I found just the thing. We have a new bench called Bethel. The view has been getting a tiny bit obstructed so I sent Kai over the top to do battle.

And there we have it, view restored.

Whilst we were battling the bramble, David was snipping some of the pesky ash saplings, that never seem to give up in their quest for world domination.

We also had a weekender helping Charlie with his wildflower clearing, for his Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award, this week.

This bit is in glorious sunshine all day, has a bench, and the hedge at the end has a couple of ash saplings that I managed to lay into it. We seed it next month and we are very excited to see how it turns out.

Brilliant job, Charlie.

And that really, was that! We had a cuppa, the heavens opened, so we called it a day at 11:30 and scurried off to find somewhere to dry out.

Thank you to all patrons, old and new. Thanks too, to the people who have bought stuff from the shop, or used the “buy me a coffee” thingy. Everything helps. I do have the option of putting the enamel mugs in the shop if there is a demand for them. Just let me know and I will see what magic I can muster.

Until next time!

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