Cawston Greenway

Lovely to get a group together on a weekend workday. It has been a long time.

Two black bags of litter picked up and loads of bramble runners snipped back.

We started at the snowdrop bench and worked all the way down to Berrybanks. Just over half a mile. I thought it was more than that but not to worry. We have plenty of workdays to carry on.

Views from the gate bench and the quadrant. Quite green this year but the greenway is about to burst into colour.

Lovely views across the heath.

Really happy with how we are looking and got loads of plans to add colour to the nettles. Will update July workdays soon. Everybody welcome but you must bring cake. Joke! Normally me or Marcus brings cake but we forgot today.

Paul

Our good friend, Andrew, made us a replacement bench for our quadrant. The missing bench was kicked over and I reused it at the snowdrop clearing. This bench sits a little higher that the rest so that people who do not want to sit quite so squat, can do so.

Great place to meet, chat, socially distance, talk about your day, share a coffee, bring your own coffee and not physically connect. It is just a great place.

A look up and down. Pretty clean and there is going to be a real burst of colour anytime soon.

Lastly, our coffee break. Nice to break off and just chat and chill.

Next one is a weekender – come along and help out. It is all good fun.

Paul

For those who worried that we had chopped the path too wide – nature has fought back!! It is no longer wide.

Really good to see a lot of new wildflowers coming up in what was scrubby bramble or invasive ivy. There is going to be a huge burst of colour along this path anytime soon.

We slapped another coat of Ronseal on the benches and got rid of the vegetation growing underneath. What we are trying to do is make it so you kinda discover the benches as a bit of a surprise and are encouraged to sit and relax.

Lastly a coffee and cookie break next to our wildflowers. I really hope to get the wildflowers to be more and the nettles to be less.

Workdays are back and published on the side bit.

Paul

We placed our lovely refurbished bench under a tree. It did look rather nice, until our feathered friends started plopping on it.

Nobody is going to risk sitting here!

So, after carefully checking for any nesting birds, we made a clearing next to the tree with clear blue sky above.

That’s better.

Loads of happy and chatty people using the path. I don’t know why, but the green space does seem to bring out the best in people.

Customary look up and down the path.

And that really was it.

Next week we are meeting at the snowdrop bench and will either go north or south, depending on whether I can get any postfix.

Paul

You are let off this week. There is a national shortage of postfix so we cannot put our bench in. Phew! I hear.

So we litter picked the whole path and just chatted as we went.

Plus a coffee and cake break, of course…

Someone has made a symbol on one of our benches and is burning candles. This is cool. The greenway is for everyone.

We are now allowed groups of six so I will sort out weekend workdays. It is all looking good.

Paul

We stained the rest of our benches this week, starting at what was the quadrant of four, more on this later.

Two coats of Ronseal’s finest. Muggins here forgot that the benches serve as a great surface to crack open the coffee, so we had to settle for the ground whilst waiting for the benches to dry!! Whilst I love freshly ground coffee, I think possibly not in this way!

It’s all about looking after the work we have done over previous years and getting the most out of it. Judging by the rain we have had since, it was a good move.

Our good friend, Andrew, has made us a replacement bench for the one that is missing at the set of four. We used it further down the path when it got kicked over. This means we will have our quadrant back and is a great meeting place for larger groups. We put this in next week and, I promise, no further bench blogs after that.

Views from the quadrant.

I am in the process of getting the bits sorted for a once a month weekend-workday, and also trying to get the recording of wildflowers and insects bit, up and running. Should be able to share next week.

Paul