Cawston Greenway

A Bit of Good (bench) News

Posted on October 8, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Six of us turned out today in what must be the last throes of summer. Ian, Martin, Dave, Marcus, Andrew, and Paul.

Andrew rescued our Geocaching trail last year, and details can be found in the side menu. Terrific fun for people and families. The trail runs the whole length of the greenway, and the Dunchurch Bridleway, too. A good 5-mile circular route to blow away the cobwebs.

Firstly, we are quite into our “Connecting Communities” tag-line. I just want to explain what that means.

This is the 3.5-mile trail that we have created. It connects the Admirals part of Bilton, Cawston, Dunchurch, and Thurlaston (with a bit of a stretch). It’s all off-road and is designed for walking and cycling. There is a Public Right of Way back through the woods to make the 5-mile circular walk.

Today we met at the Bethal Bench and worked northwards to where we got to last week.

It’s all very narrow and unhealthy ash trees that are growing way too densely.

Nothing is going to mature into a decent tree with good girth when the only way to grow is upwards. We hope that what is left will slow down in the race to the sky and put on decent width.

The section south of the Bethal Bench is where we don’t cut back any trees, so we can hang up our saws for a week. The reason is the adjacent housing.

The dense tree cover provides a noise buffer for the road. We will be clearing some of the ivy and low brambles to encourage wildflowers, but the trees have never been cut back on this section by us.

We broke for coffee and a good old chat.

It’s nice that we can chat and have a laugh, but not in that masculine “banter” way, that is so braggy, bullsh*ty, and competitive. It’s the way forward, trust me.

The rewards of our labour of love.

So many people are using the path, and everyone is so happy with the light and airiness of it. We have so much footfall that we have made warning signs at each end of where we are working.

I don’t think people really took that much notice, though!

A quick YouTube of part of the first 300 metres of this section.

I like it. People can walk two or three abreast and not feel like they are in a big green tunnel.

We also did a bit of strimming around the benches on the southern end.

Nobody wants an insect going up their trouser leg looking for a warm place to hibernate.

And a very kind person is filling up our bird-feeders.

We had a bench given to us by a lovely lady called Jacquie and sadly in got ransacked, twice.

A friend of Jacquie saw it dumped down the bank, recovered it, and fixed it up for a fourth time.

It’s so nice that people care so much about stuff like this.

Not all heroes wear capes – thank you, G, for doing this.

Dunchurch Bridleway

A wet morning brought just me and Dave out. We had a “shall we bother” moment, but we cracked on…

We ended up covering a fair old distance, spurred on with hot coffee and custard cream biscuits.

I think just 200-metres left on this bit, before tackling the 600-metres on the most westerly end.

It’s all fun, fun, fun!!

Until next time!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged Active Travel, cawston, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, Dunchurch | 1 Comment

New Month – New Section

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

We made a start on our longest section today. Steve, Ian, Matt, and Paul turned out armed with way too much gear. However, because I knew that we were going to be a bit light on numbers today, I did a bit on Monday to get us off to a good start.

The last two photos are before and after shots.

This section is 900 metres long and we have 5 workdays, so 180 metres per workday.

Amazingly, we managed to do 240 metres, so we are ahead of ourselves.

What we as a group have decided is that we want people to be able to walk side-by-side, and not get bothered if someone on a bicycle comes past.

We also want pools of sunlight to hit the woodland floor.

We also want a wildflower-rich grassy margin between the path and the scrub.

It’s a lot to ask, but the first thing is thinning out the trees so that what is left can thrive and put on some girth.

This is ridiculously overcrowded, and none of the trees are going to do well.

So we set about taking out the stragglers.

Why every man, woman, and their dogs decided to walk up and down the path as we are bringing down 20-metre trees is beyond me? Thankfully, we have a clear view in both directions, so the only people in danger of getting squished are us.

We added to the log piles.

Super habitat for all sorts of wildlife.

At half-time, we had some quality sausages and red onion batches.

My bushcraft skills are improving; a good slurp of coffee and a decent brunch gave us the energy to push on.

At the end of the workday, the path looked like this.

Loads of sunlight getting in and a good width to the trail.

Here is a YouTube video from someone who walked the path a few months ago.

Interesting to see the path from someone else’s perspective, and nice that they have a decent camera.

Lastly, a litter pick on the southern end.

Back to normal levels, thank goodness!

Until next time!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged Active Travel, butterflies, cawston greenway, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, cycling, walking, Wheeling | 5 Comments

Section One – DONE

Posted on September 24, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Seven of us turned out today for our weekly dopamine hit. Marcus, Reece, Mark, Ian, Martin, Matt, and Paul, and we had just today to finish the work on this first section (see September Jobs tab).

600 metres of 3,500 metres in total. It has all been about thinning the trees and breaking up the canopy to get dappled sunlight into the understory.

We, quite literally, have absolute pools of glorious sunlight hitting the floor. This is going to add so much biodiversity next year with grass and wildflowers popping up all over.

I have to admit, it’s been a tough first four weeks of the cutting-back season. This section has been left because it sort of looked after itself, and we never really had the manpower to justify spending too much time down here.

We have had a noticeable uptick in traffic and loads of comments about how wide, open, bright, and nice it now is.

A definite pat on the back earned for all of us.

We lugged a huge tree trunk to the side of the path before enjoying coffee and biscuits.

This will take years and years to slowly rot down, and provide habitat for so many insects, and small mammals that will burrow underneath it.

Next week we jump to the next section. A 900 metre stretch from the Underpass to the Cawston Bridleway Bridge. We have five Wednesdays in the month of October, so we need to be doing 180 metres per session. However, we have done a lot of work here at the back end of the last cutting-back season, so it’s not quite as intimidating as it sounds.

The main thing is to cut away the overhanging branches.

We don’t want to be cutting trees down, just removing a few branches. We need to be especially thoughtful where the housing gets close to the path and the tree cover acts as a buffer to the road noise.

We finished off with a litter-pick. Mostly aged rubbish that we found under the scrub as we pushed it back.

And lastly, I found this rather splendid fungus.

Apparently, it’s called Dryad’s Saddle and is edible, but Google is saying that it doesn’t taste very nice. I wasn’t feeling particularly peckish anyway…

Dunchurch Bridleway

We have 1,260 metres of the 1,600 metres of bridleway that we need to push out to a decent width. That’s 90 metres per session, with 14 sessions across the cutting-back season.

Ian, Dave, Steve, and Paul turned out armed with saws and hedge-trimmers. Steve and Ian pushed on with creating the path width, whilst Dave and Paul worked on the scrub and scrappy trees that are getting tangled up with the mature ones.

Before we started, it looked like this.

We can slowly get rid of it and let the grass and wildflowers grow on the ground between the bigger trees.

We are trying to get the path to splay around the trees so that it all feels like it is working together, rather than a narrow path through a load of aged scrub.

We broke for coffee at halftime.

And you know when you have that feeling that you have forgotten something, but cannot quite put your finger on what it is….

I realised that I had forgotten to change my shoes.

Health and Safety would have a blooming field day!!

To make up for my foolishness, I made myself do a litter-pick along the whole bridleway.

That’s about it for this week. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Until next time!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged butterflies, cawston greenway, community, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, conservation, cycling, nature, outdoors, volunteer work, walking, wildlife | 4 Comments

How Difficult Can It Be…

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

How difficult is it to predict the weather just 12 hours ahead?

The forecast was telling us that we were going to have a total washout. We changed our plans, yet again, and surprise, surprise, not a drop of rain came down…

Mr Weatherman – you have but one job!!

Anyhow, a double-digit turnout today with Marcus, Reece, Dave, Matt, Steve, David, Martin, Ian, Mark, and Paul. We hunkered down under the Bear pub bridge in an effort to have some protection from the torrential downpour that never came, and carried on trying to break up the tree canopy to get the sunlight in, so more wildflowers and grasses can grow on the path floor.

It’s the flat-bottomed V (\_/) that we’re looking for, and with mature trees lining the path to really emphasise the woodland aspect, and considering the number of people coming past, it’s getting a lot of use, despite the Berrybanks flood defence pond overflowing in the night.

At halftime, we enjoyed birthday cake and coffee – Happy Birthday, Matt. We hope you had a super day.

The views up and down from our stronghold.

It’s going the right way.

Martin and Steve went off on a mission to locate posts that are called mile markers and would have been used when the railway was operational as a way of identifying a certain point on the line.

Due to some rather amazing mapping work, Martin worked out the exact location of these marker posts, and we actually found some of them.

The plan is to replicate them in wood and replace them. We will probably need to measure the size of the numbers and get some replacements made up with a 3D printer. The posts would have been every quarter of a mile.

Here are a couple from the Leamington end that have been discovered and painted.

It’s just a nod to the heritage of the path as a working railway for 130 years, before being closed in the 1980s.

Super sleuthing, Martin and Steve.

Ian and Marcus headed to the darkest northern part of the path and started to slowly widen it.

We have one more week on this first 600 metre section, so we will all be working on the last 200 metre part of the path, and that will be it for this cutting-back season. What doesn’t get done this year will be at the top of the list for next year.

In October, we jump to a 900 metre section which is from the Underpass to the Cawston Bridleway bridge. It’s a 5-week month, and we have done a lot of work on it at the end of last year’s cutting-back season, so it should be relatively easy.

We did our customary litter pick. Not a lot, so it feels like things are getting back to normal now that all the naughty squirrels are back at squirrel school.

And yes, you guessed it – no broken benches to distract us from our quest.

Even this one, which has been built, smashed, and rebuilt so many times, and from so many randomly different parts, that I now call it the Frankenstein bench. It was formally the Berrybanks picnic bench.

Lastly, in an effort to project ourselves in a logo, I’m thinking of this…

Let me know what you think?

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Until next time!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged Active Travel, community, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, conservation, cycling, nature, outdoors, volunteer work, walking | 10 Comments

Lumberjacking – Week 2

Posted on September 10, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

When I woke up and looked out of the window this morning, I uttered a curse or two. It was raining, and the forecast for the morning looked pretty awful.

I sent out a WhatsApp message to the group to meet under the Bear Pub bridge. At least our kit would stay dry, even if we did not.

Somehow, the rain never came! In fact, we had sunshine dappling through the trees. A little miracle, because at about 2pm, it came down by the bucketful and hasn’t stopped since!

We had a bumper work party of nine. Marcus, Steve, Ian, Dave, Matt, Reece, David, Martin, and Paul. We shifted more trees that are growing at funny angles and are just generally overcrowded.

We eventually want trees that are growing straight upwards and have the room to put on decent girth. The cut-down ones will make fantastic habitat for all sorts of insects as they slowly rot down.

We broke for coffee and flapjack at half-time.

I’m not sure about everyone else, but I was desperate for an energy boost at this point. This really is hard going, but the difference as the sunlight floods in is pretty amazing to see. We had a huge number of people passing by, so word is out about this section becoming a nice place to walk.

We had a dilemma… Someone had smashed the seats off our Berrybanks picnic bench. I was going to rebuild it and place it somewhere else, but then I thought that it’s just going to get dragged back, and whoever is getting upset that the youth have a little den will probably smash the seats off again.

When I pulled it out, I was pretty horrified at what I saw, but I got to work and made it sort of usable again. I placed it in the middle of one of our friendship triangles. Nobody is smashing these seats up!!

Lastly, a quick litter pick, and our day was done.

Dunchurch Bridleway

Four of us turned out on a sunny Friday morning with the idea of making a bit of a glade around our picnic bench. Dave, Ian, David, and Paul. This is south-facing, so absolutely prime for wildlife.

We want the area to grass up and be full of wildflowers. A lot of the trees were dead for some odd reason, and as you can see, massively overcrowded.

The path needs to be a little wider so people can walk two abreast.

This will be our focus across the winter. It’s not massively opening it up, but just pushing it out gently.

We had a coffee and cookie break before the really backbreaking task of removing the stumps.

If we leave them, we never kinda get back to them, so we need them gone.

When the grass starts to grow, you will never know that they were there!

Lastly, a log-pile for insects to make a home.

Cursing that I got my shadow in the picture, but the sun is so bright and I cannot see the phone screen!! Well, that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

Tritax Corporate Volunteer Workday

We had the lovely people from Tritax helping us out last week, too. 15 eager volunteers helped push back the scrub, cut trees, and really let the light in on the section that we are working on at the moment.

This is so helpful and gets us ahead of the game a bit. The session was led by Marcus and Steve, and was super successful.

Marcus and Steve have made the corporate days into something really good. I simply couldn’t do this because I am just not a people person. I am glad that I can identify my limitations, and we have enough strength and depth in the squad to still make the magic happen.

Lastly, the Tritax crew did a litter pick, so we are looking good for autumn walks.

Thank you, Tritax!

Next week, we are at the furthest north friendship triangle benches, where we need some of us to go southwards, and some into the deepest north. The week after, we are all northbound, just easing the trees back and letting the sunlight in.

Until then!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged Active Travel, butterflies, community, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, conservation, Corporate Volunteering Days, cycling, nature, walking, wildlife | 8 Comments

Lumberjacks For The Next Six Months

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Seven of us turned out on a soggy morning. Reece, Ian, Steve, Dave, Martin, Marcus, and Paul. Rain was threatening and the forecast didn’t look good, but the only actual drops of rain were from what was held in the tree canopy as we started to shake it.

We set up camp fully prepared for a good old soaking.

Thankfully, the rain didn’t come, well, it did, but just a little later than the forecast. This allowed us to go into proper lumberjack mode and start to thin the trees out.

We want every tree to have a distance of between 2 to 2.5 metres between its neighbouring trees. This allows so much more light to get into the understory, and allows the trees to stop fighting for the light by rushing upwards, or growing at funny angles, and just slowly put on girth and become decent upright specimens. And it allows for everything to just breathe a bit, rather than being so tightly knotted and dense.

We have been advised by the Forestry Commission to cut the trees as low to the ground as possible. By break time we were all feeling it in our arms, shoulders, and backs.

Being the first workday of the month, bacon batches were the order of the day. The lads say they like their bacon crispy…

I think our little stove delivered, and thank-you to an anonymous buy-me-a-coffee donator who sponsored our brunch.

We carried on chopping and cutting.

And the sunlight started to stream in. You can see how the trees are growing at odd angles here. They will need to come out, sadly.

With about half an hour to go, we realised that we had a bit of a problem. In our haste to cut all the trees down, we had blocked the path and had to quickly clear it.

Thankfully, we just about managed it. A lesson for next week, maybe. We cleared about 200 metres, which is 50 metres more than we had planned, however, there are bits that we need to go back to.

It tells me that the plan is doable, which left me with a good feeling.

Afterwards I had to dart up to the park bench that Jacquie had kindly given us. A rather naughty squirrel had decided to wrench in from the concrete fixings and throw it down the bank.

Thankfully, a friend of Jacquie, who walks his dog along the path and is called Geoff, could not bear for Jacquie to see what had become of her generous donation, so he is going to recover the bench, rebuild it, and put it somewhere where people might appreciate it.

Thank you, Geoff. Proper super-hero.

Whilst I was down that end, I did a quick bit of work on one of our picnic benches. Someone has tried to move it, or just wear-and-tear.. But it needed quick action before bits started to go missing.

The bench gets to live another day.

You might be thinking that my day ended here, with a warm glow in my heart. It didn’t. The rain that was forecast at 10 am and made us put up our gazebo cover thingy…

…suddenly started, and boy-oh-boy, it just didn’t stop!!

Our Berrybanks pond filled up and then overflowed!!

Because we improved the drainage, the overflow will be gone in no time. Beforehand it would have flooded the path for weeks.

Here is a little YouTube of the pond doing its thing.

That’s about it for this week. Lots of stuff happening over the rest of this week, and the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Until next time!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged Active Travel, community, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, conservation, nature, volunteer work | 6 Comments

Last Session of the 2025 Nesting Season.

Posted on August 27, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

We were back up to our normal numbers this week. Eight of us turned out. Steve, Mark, Martin, Ian, Dave, Reece, David, and Paul. Five of us went southwards to keep the connector between the Cawston path and the Dunchurch path open.

Loads of people coming past so it is getting the use that we hoped for. It’s all about people having a safe traffic-free environment to enjoy, whilst connecting the communities of Cawston and Dunchurch.

The remaining three of us did a bit of bench maintenance. It had become a bit too wobbly so we battened it down.

It was pretty solid after we had put in about 60 screws!!

We also cut back a load of bramble.

This stuff just never gives up. We can see where we cut it back last time, and it just throws out more shoots, almost in defiance. Our old mate, Mick, would take ages kinda weaving his way back along the stem all the way to the root and hit it there. It would take him ages, but I am starting to see that there was a method in what seemed like madness.

We broke for brunch and enjoyed sausage and red onion batches, and a good old slurp of hot coffee. The views here across the heath are good. I could quite easily bring the stove, a good book, a decent bit of scran, and just while away a few hours doing absolutely nothing…

Very nice…

If someone would like to sponsor our bacon batch brunch next week, just smash the buy-me-a-coffee link and we will love you forever. If you do, please leave your first name so we can give you a shout out on the blog next week.

I visited a reserve north of Rugby later in the day to give us a bit of an idea of what we eventually want to look like in the cuttings.

I acknowledge that we need to be careful with the tree cover acting as a buffer for the road noise, so don’t panic if you think that we are going to start chopping all the trees down. We are just trying to create the zone between the path and the scrub and trees that is wildflower-rich and attracts butterflies and bees.

I also visited the other end of our railway path. We are on the disused Rugby to Leamington Spa railway line and a lot of work has happened at the other end.

At some point it will connect with us at Potford Dam, our most southerly bit. The bridge spans the line of the HS2 (High Speed Railway) that is being built, and the mounds of gravel are the foundations for the cycle bridge to get across the Fosse Way, an old Roman road. We can see how the path is raised slightly to get over the flooded bits, with ponds on either side so wildlife can thrive.

It’s all good stuff!!

Dunchurch Bridleway

Ian, Ruby, and Paul turned out last Friday and kept pushing the path back so people are able to see where they are going and feel safe using it. Apparently, if people cannot see a good 100 metres ahead of themselves on a country path, they start to feel a bit unsettled and anxious. This is why we aim to push our paths out to about three metres in width, eventually. And it’s all about cyclists and pedestrians having space to share without bugging each other.

There is plenty to do on this bit, but I think this is our second year, so it feels like we are slowly making progress, and again, plenty of people walking past, so it is getting used.

The real work starts next week. We need to get rid of the overhanging trees so that sunlight can get to the path edges to allow flora and wildlife to thrive.

I have been chomping-at-the-bit to get going so really looking forward to us getting on with it. You can get an idea of what we need to do here – September Jobs.

Well that’s about it for this week. Thanks for reading.

Until next time!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged butterflies, cawston greenway, community, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, conservation, cycling, Dunchurch Bridleway, nature, outdoors, Sustainable Transport, volunteer work, walking, wildlife | 1 Comment

Reduced Numbers…

Posted on August 20, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

There were only four of us this week. Various commitments like holidays, and actual paid work, kept about half the team engaged elsewhere. But Reece, Steve, Martin, and Paul made it and we did a bit of strimming and also pulled down a few dodgy looking branches that potentially might have fallen.

The main thing for today though, was a bit of a test to see how much ground we can clear per session. If you look at the tabs above, there is one called September Jobs. Each workday needs us to be clearing between 150 and 180 metres per session, and not just strimming back.

We need to be clearing the overhang so sunlight can get into the path margins and allow the strip between the path edge and the scrub edge to become wildflower-rich grass. At the moment it is mostly just nothingness because it is so dark.

Here are the photos from today, just to give people an idea of kinda where we are going.

We did about 200 metres, which fills me with confidence. However, the proof will be in the pudding…

Some bits of “tunnel” will be left so that wildlife like dormice, which are arboreal (live in trees), can get from side-to-side, but we really want to get that flat bottomed V on most of the path to increase the biodiversity and just make it a bit more airy and let everything have space to breathe a bit.

If we are thinning out the trees, the ones that are left should put on a lot of girth, because we have taken away the need for them all to compete for the light and put all their energy into doing upwards.

We broke for coffee.

You will notice that I typed just coffee. Muggings here forgot to bring biscuits. Normally, the one who is on holiday, will bring the treats and I plain forgot. Pretty much kicking myself because I could’ve gone cap-in-hand to the local butchers, got the stove out, and done us some sausage batches.

Oh well!!

One thing that we all noticed was the amount of leaves falling. It was almost like green snow.

We are officially now in a drought and trees will preserve their energy by shedding their leaves to conserve water and protect themselves from further dehydration. This is sometimes referred to as a “false autumn”.

I think the last time we had this situation was 2020, and everything bounces back and normalises pretty quickly, so it really is nothing to worry about.

We did our usual litter pick.

Lots of cans and sweet wrappers with the kids still being off school. Just a week and a half to go before they all go back, and then I might publish a full damage assessment? Probably not, I don’t know. I just don’t want to give away the energy to idiots who feel the need to smash things up.

The next one is this Friday on Dunchurch Bridleway, and then next week we are making sure the two paths connect and everyone can enjoy the circular walk between the two villages.

Until then!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged Active Travel, cawston greenway, community, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, conservation, cycling, nature, wildlife | 8 Comments

Unscheduled Bench Work…

Posted on August 13, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Seven brave souls turned out today in the scorching heat. I think it went over 30 degrees C (almost 90 in F) as the sun slowly melted everything and everyone. Mark, Ian, Steve, Reece, Marcus, Dave, and Paul.

We were able to split into three groups again. Mark and Dave headed south with the strimmers to keep the path width where it needs to be. Ian, Steve, and Marcus went back to the same location as last week where we had the dropped branches to just tidy up and get a feel for the work that needs to be done in September.

If you cast your mind back to last week, we had a forced change of plan. We were supposed to be putting a canopy above the park-style bench that keeps getting pebble-dashed with bird poo.

Sadly, some foolish squirrel had decided to give it a good old clout the day before.

We’re not sure if they thought that they could smash it off the ground and stick it in their garden, or what? But they pretty much wrecked it.

Today, me and Reece got our heads together and fixed it up as best we could.

It’s a bit wonky, but it works. If it gets broken again I think it will become firewood. It really is designed for light garden use, but the lovely lady who gave it to us, Jacquie, really wanted to give it a try on the greenway.

Let’s hope we get some use out of it.

Our other benches are a bit more robust, due to the nature of them being in a public place.

Whilst it is always a bit frustrating when stuff like this happens, and we all feel a bit down about it, we have to quickly pick ourselves up and soldier on. If we caved in at every setback, we would’ve given up a long time ago.

We broke for coffee and flapjack at half-time.

This is where we plan and stuff, as well as having a laugh and just bonding as a group.

Looking at the up and down photos…

We are where we need to be with the path width. We need to create a two metre wildflower margin between the path edge and the scrub, on each side. We will use the straight trunks of felled trees to mark the path edge so people hopefully don’t wander off it and start trampling the wildflowers. We also need to get rid of the overhanging branches to let loads more sunlight in.

After our break we got back to it.

A good morning’s work and finished off with a litter-pick.

Dunchurch Bridleway

Ian, Steve, Dave, and Paul turned out last Friday morning and we managed to do another 400 metres of strimming.

Remember that the paths are connected and make a really decent circular walk.

Plenty of places to stop and enjoy a picnic, or just the peace and quiet of the countryside.

It’s a good place to get off our phones and the continual doom-scrolling, and just have a bit of green-time.

Two more weeks of the bird nesting season before all hell breaks loose with the onslaught of the cutting back season.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Until next time!

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged Active Travel, cawston greenway, community, Connecting Communities, Connecting With Nature, conservation, cycling, Dunchurch Bridleway, nature, walking | 8 Comments

Bacon Time

Posted on August 6, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Eight of us made it today with the lure of a bacon bap, seeing as it’s the first workday of the month.

Mark, Ian, Marcus, Steve, Reece, Matt, Martin, and Paul turned out with a plan in mind. Marcus, Ian and Steve headed north to sort out some branches that had dropped and were likely to cause a cyclist a serious headache if they didn’t duck in time.

A huge branch had dropped which had brought others down with it. Even walkers were having to duck to get under it. We made a decent log pile for insects out of some of the cuttings

The rest of us had to change our plans, for reasons that we can go into next week, so instead we strimmed to keep the width where it needs to be.

It means we can all play nice, rather than cyclists and walkers bothering each other and pushing each other into the scrub and risk getting bitten by the many mini-beasts lurking in there.

This is the view up and down from the Oak Tree picnic bench.

We’re going to thin the trees and use the straight bits of timber to mark the path edge. This will be where we strim up to, and beyond that, we want a nice wide wildflower-rich grassy margin, before moving into scrub and shrubby understory.

This will be the challenge as soon as we get to September.

If MasterChef did a segment on bacon cooked outdoors, just maybe…

Everyone is telling me that they like their bacon “well done” and I think our little camping stove, with its two settings – OFF and FULL ON, pretty much delivered.

Good to stuff our faces and have a laugh whilst standing about in the woods. What passers by must think, gawd knows…

We released the Potford Dam bench from the jungle underneath it, and admired the view.

We also noticed that some stumps that we had drilled loads of holes in, to kill them off (middle of path so trip hazard) are sprouting new shoots!!!!

It really feels like an uphill battle at the moment!!

I found a couple of pockets of time, so litter picked the south part of the greenway and the whole of Dunchurch Bridleway. Bigger bag is the bridleway.