More Stumps and Creating a Flop Zone

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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BECOME A PATRON:

We have costs that we simply cannot avoid. Insurance, running this blog, tools, timber for bench repairs, screws and wood-stain, wildflower seeds, etc, etc… I try so hard to recycle and reuse so much stuff, and I am forever begging local businesses for donations (which is pretty tough with me with being a bit of an introvert). If you like what we do, please consider becoming a patron. Just £3, £4, or £5 a month makes so much difference if enough people donate. Thank you. www.patreon.com/cawstongreenway

Six of us turned out on a very wet morning. It had been raining all night, and we were lucky to not get a good soaking today. Matt, Ian, Marcus, Steve, Reece, and Paul donned our wildlife superhero capes and set about with the tasks for the day.

Ian started by knocking back the overbridge entry point.

The view from the bridge shows how puddled up it has become.

Reece, Marcus, Ian, and Steve then set about creating the 12-inch buffer between the path edge and the wildflower-rich grassy areas.

This is to stop the path edge vegetation from flopping onto the path and forcing everyone to walk in single-file, which is not exactly conducive to having a conversation.

We did about 400 metres today, which is pretty good going in the wet, and because we are on top of it, it’s all new growth, so there is not the fight back that we get with aged coarse grasses.

Me and Matt opted for the ache-inducing stump removal.

Ian’s son, David, made a new handle for a spare Zubat blade with his 3D printer. This is amazing. The possibilities are endless!!

The saw is extremely sharp, but it was still really hard work.

We had to leave the stumps quite high, but if we drill a load of holes in the tops, nature will help them to rot down.

A welcome cuppa and flapjack was desperately needed to rebuild our energy.

This, of course, presented an excellent opportunity for me to try out my new joke…

Why did the chicken go to the gym?

To work on its pecks…

The groans were scaring the wildlife…

The short grass and the longer margins next to it are starting to take shape.

It’s quite hard to show in a photo, but hopefully we get it so that each bench feels like a little oasis in a sea of gently swaying wildflowers.

I’m going to do a wildflower survey soon. Just to try and see what we have at this point in the year.

Our water management seems to have coped with the rain and is actually doing what it is supposed to do.

We have one last bit to get sorted.

We know how to fix it, so not a worry.

I also did our weekly litter-pick.

Not bad considering it’s the Easter school holiday.

Dunchurch Bridleway

We pushed back the path that leads to the Solstice Coffee Shop, and also westward along the bridleway. Over 400 metres covered by Ian, David, and Paul.

A group of people from the The Ramblers came past and were really happy with what we were doing.

“The cat’s pyjamas” is how one of them described it!

The next one is at Potford Dam, where we have a bench to put in.

Until then!

Paul

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We Were Stumped Today

Posted on April 16, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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BECOME A PATRON:

We have costs that we simply cannot avoid. Insurance, running this blog, tools, timber for bench repairs, screws and wood-stain, wildflower seeds, etc, etc… I try so hard to recycle and reuse so much stuff, and I am forever begging local businesses for donations (which is pretty tough with me with being a bit of an introvert). If you like what we do please consider becoming a patron. Just £3, £4, or £5 a month makes so much difference if enough people donate. Thank you. www.patreon.com/cawstongreenway

Eight wildlife heroes turned out this week. George, Steve, Dave, Ian, David, Martin, Reece, and Paul. We had a task on our hands that has been on the “To Do List” for about five or more years. We cut back a load of hawthorn trees ages ago and fully intended to come back and “tidy up” the stumps.

They have bugged me ever since.

Cutting back (pollarding) Hawthorn trees not a good idea because they will produce a lot of spindly growth that is difficult to manage and really unhealthy for the tree. Branches become interlocked and start rubbing against each other, leading to infection and disease.

I have always thought that if someone was unfortunate to come off their bike, they could end up doing a faceplant right on top of the things.

And aesthetically, it doesn’t look great.

We have also started pushing the edge of the path back by about 12 inches. We need a buffer between the path and the wildflower-rich grassy zone.

It stops the path from becoming narrow and also allows the vegetation to flop at the end of the summer and not come onto the path. Nothing worse than nettles brushing against your shins.

At half-time, we broke for coffee.

We had a bit of a French flavour to our break this week. Lovely biscuits and a lovely view up, down and to the side.

We have had kids playing and making dens.

This really warms my heart. We want the trail to be open to everyone, and this is so good to see.

We also litter-picked.

The gift that keeps on giving. Would be nice to earn some womble wages now and again, but never found so much as a 20p piece…

We need to use this time of the year to work out where our next glades will be. Ideally, we want about 15 metres of open space with the scrub cut right back and the majority of the trees on the edge laid into a hedge. We need young trees that are easy to manage. There is no point trying to chop back a 50-year-old oak tree when we have young hawthorn and elder everywhere.

If we have a mature tree, we can build the glade around it by cutting back to the south of it. That way, the tree will complement the glade without blocking out a load of sunlight.

We can mark the areas using what3words so we know where to come back in the autumn.

I’m really happy with how we are looking. The amount of footfall was good today, with people walking and cycling past, so it is getting used.

Sadly, some idiotic squirrel decided to break our bench on the Dunchurch Bridleway bit, so a quick repair was required.

I didn’t want to leave it until our Friday workday because it’s the school holidays and I didn’t want to risk bits going walkabout whilst we wait until we are there.

Super day today, it really does feel like somewhere special.

On Friday, we are strimming back the path to Solstice Coffee Shop, and next week we are at the Cawston Bridleway bridge removing a couple of stumps and strimming the path edge northwards to where we got to today.

Thank you to all of our patrons and people buying us a coffee. It really does help.

Until next time!

Paul

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We Rebuilt Our Picnic Bench

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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BECOME A PATRON:

We have costs that we simply cannot avoid. Insurance, running this blog, tools, timber for bench repairs, screws and wood-stain, wildflower seeds, etc, etc… I try so hard to recycle and reuse so much stuff, and I am forever begging local businesses for donations (which is pretty tough with me with being a bit of an introvert). If you like what we do please consider becoming a patron. Just £3, £4, or £5 a month makes so much difference if enough people donate. Thank you. www.patreon.com/cawstongreenway

Seven of what I would like to call wildlife superheroes turned out today, but we were far from doing wildlife stuff. Marcus, Ian, Reece, Martin, Steve, Matt, and Paul set about fixing our picnic bench.

The more we take these apart, the more we realise what an absolute rubbish buy they were. They are definitely designed for very occasional garden use. But hey-ho… We will not be beaten.

It ain’t perfect, but we ran out of time and just wanted to get it all screwed together so no more bits would go missing. It needs a tiny bit of TLC but it is fully functional again.

We first put these in, in September 2023 so effectively we have had 18 months use out of them. The other one is now on the Dunchurch Bridleway after we totally rebuilt the frame and turned it into a 4-seater. This one is probably 50% rebuilt frame, so it is slowly becoming more suitable for our purposes.

A pretty good morning putting our collective minds together to work out how to fix it.

Martin, Ian and Marcus headed northwards to clear a fallen tree.

We have had an incredibly generous gift from JR TREE CARE in the form of saws.

These bad boys cut wood like a hot knife through butter. Thank you so much for these, Jamie. They will make a huge difference.

We broke for coffee and flapjack at half-time.

Enjoyable conversations and lots of stuff in the pipeline. Marcus being absent from the photo is a bit of a clue…

Here is a nice message that Martin received a couple of weeks ago.

Hi Martin, hope you have been doing great this week. Joshua and I just went out for a walk near our home where you work. I saw a few cute benches there, I guess they are what you were working on the other day?

Pathway was much tidier and cleaner too. 🙂 thank you.

It’s always nice to get a bit of feedback.

Dunchurch Bridleway

I thought I was on my own this week, so I made a pack-up for just me, which consisted of, one Cumberland sausage, one egg, and one rasher of bacon.

I also brought a book that I am currently reading. It was my intention to really get some use out of the facilities that we provide, as an end user.

Dave appeared on his bike and I was cursing that I had not brought more food. I did offer to go halves on what I had, but Dave was OK, I hope…

Riddled with guilt and burdened with a deep sense of shame, I chomped through my delicious breakfast, before we carried on staining the benches and strimming the path up to the last set.

To make up for my extravagant breakfast folly for one, I felt a bit of self-flagellation was needed.

So I litter-picked the whole path, and felt the guilt instantly lift from my shoulders.

The trail is looking pretty good.

The first three hundred metres is a working bridleway that the farmer uses for access to his fields, hence the deep ruts, after that it becomes a tad narrow in places, but we have a plan in September to push it out a bit more and create glades around some of the mature trees. We like the width to be such that people can walk two abreast so they can have conversations and stuff.

Another fantastic week of us blokes bonding and eating decent food (well, me eating decent food)…

Next one is just north of the Cawston Underpass.

Until then!

Paul

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More Trouble With The Waterworks

Posted on April 2, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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Seven wildlife superheroes turned out today: Matt, Steve, Reece, Martin, Marcus, Ian, and Paul. However, it was more of an engineering session than anything else.

We have rainwater suddenly puddling up at our main entrance and it is hugely annoying for everyone. So we set about trying to push the water onward.

We are actually becoming quite good at this. Maybe time for a career change. Cawston Drains or something equally catchy…

We also had a few tree branches that were providing a super spot for a crow or magpie to sit outside of a couple of our bird nesting boxes and pick off the young fledglings as they popped out.

I seemed to be behind the curve slightly, because no sooner had I suggested it and raised my phone to take a before picture, the offending branches were gone!!

We broke for coffee and bacon rolls, what with it being the first workday of the month.

It was blooming tasty and a decent chance for us all to chat, laugh and just kinda connect, which, at the end of the day, is what we are all about.

We stained our last bench, so that job is done for six months.

The reason that this one is last is because it is stained with Dainish Oil. If you don’t know what it smells like – find out. It is divine.

Sadly bench talk leads us to a casualty…

A naughty squirrel decided to give our Berrybanks picnic bench a damn good kicking. Such is life…

Possibly a clue as to why…?

I have already started to make replacement bits for it.

This style of bench was a terrible buy, but I convinced myself that the 5-star rating meant that they looked stronger than they actually were. I’m going to get my money’s worth out of them, just you see.

Whilst I am wittering on about benches, we constantly strim around the benches so people don’t have creepy crawlies going up their trouser legs and taking bites out of their shins, thighs, or worse…

We also want the picnic benches to be a bit of an island oasis in the sea of long grass and wildflowers… You will see what I mean in a couple of months.

This is a photo from June 2019 that kinda shows what is in my mind’s eye. Thanks to Marcus and Aaron for the modelling shot.

Ideally, the grass needs to be a lot shorter around the base of the bench, but hopefully, you get the idea.

Here’s a quick video of the last four benches on the southern end.

It’s all looking very good and it really is a great place to be.

For me, it’s an absolute paradise, and in about a month, it will become so full of wildflowers and butterflies that you will not be able to stay away.

Lastly, we litter-picked…

The gift that keeps on giving!

The next one is on the Dunchurch bit this Friday. I think I’m on my own so I will just stain the benches and possibly cook myself some breakfast. It’s the nearest I will ever get to wild camping.

Until then!

Paul

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Getting Ready For Easter

Posted on March 26, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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Six of us turned out today. Martin, Steve, Dave, Matt, Marcus, and Paul. We split into pairs and cracked on with jobs that were starting to become slightly overdue.

Martin and Dave seeded the scallops that we created on the most southerly bit with a bee-and-butterfly friendly wildflower mix.

There was also a large bag of seeds that I had collected at the end of last summer, so hopefully we will have a riot of colour and loads of nectar for all the insects.

In the margins elsewhere there is stuff starting to push up.

We need to be really careful not to strim too deep into the scallops when we are trying to keep the path a decent width. It would be such a shame to lose this growth before everything flowers and drops seeds for next year. As long as people can walk two abreast, I am happy.

Steve and Marcus split a load of snowdrops from our secret supply and filled in a load of the gaps on our snowdrop bank.

This will give us the snowdrop carpet eventually.

Matt and Paul opted for the staining of the last four picnic benches.

The worst job because we end up going home looking like Spotted Dick – hold that cake thought for a moment.

One of the benches overlooks our brook…

Here I am, back on the theme of running water…

I’m a Pisces – what do you expect…

We broke for coffee and a delish date-and-walnut cake baked by Matt’s wife (I told you to hold that thought!!).

The cake was to die for, as were the views up, down, and across the countryside.

I found a few pockets of time over the last week so I caught up with bench re-staining for the stragglers up the other end.

Someone had a little fire, which is fine.

We gave up on fires a long time ago. So sick of going home smelling like a smoked kipper.

Hmmm, that actually looks rather tasty…

We also did a litter pick.

It really is the gift that keeps on giving!!

Dunchurch Bridleway

Just me and Ian turned out this week, but because the grass is nice and short, it’s an easy job and a decent 250 metres got strimmed.

Hopefully, you can see how we are trying to leave a wildflower and grassy margin between the tightly strimmed path and the more established shrubby stuff behind it. In September we will cut deeper into the scrub and allow the wildflower margins to be a lot wider. We want to develop the trail so that it’s a series of glades with mature trees in the centre of each clearing.

It’s gonna be fun trying to pull this off!!

We broke for coffee and muggins here forgot the biscuits…

The only upside was for my waistline.

We are about ready for the Easter Holidays and everything is about to burst into life. It’s looking pretty good.

Next week we are at the Jaguar Land-Rover bench sorting out another bit that floods.

Until then!

Paul

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Spring Well and Truly Delivered

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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It’s the first day of spring today. Personally, I don’t go by the 1st March date because nothing really seems to happen until about now. Five wildlife heroes donned their capes and made it out today, and three yesterday. Steve, Reece, Martin, Dave, and Paul, today, and Ian, Steve, and Paul, yesterday.

The first of our blossoms came out to greet us. A Cherry-plum, which has rather nice fruit later in the year, so I am told.

Yesterday we did a little bit of work on the last wet bit of Berrybanks.

Water is leaching from somewhere and just puddling up across the entry path.

I tried to build up the level but it just turned into a mudbath.

We found some abandoned pipe and used it to carry the water under the path.

It seems to be working!! We threw a load of brash onto the wet mud to help it all dry out and give the ground a bit of strength. It really is just a trickle, but annoying.

We enjoyed a cuppa and then tidied up the main pond.

We saw freshwater shrimp in the bottom pool, which was a nice treat.

A very rewarding morning.

Today we continued with re-staining the benches.

A very welcome sausage and fried onion roll was had at break-time, along with a good slurp of hot coffee.

Sausages starting to brown up nicely on our camping stove. I forgot to take a photo of them fully cooked because I was way too busy stuffing my face.

We have four benches left to do on this southern end, which will be next week’s job.

We can see how scabby they have become because we missed the stain at the end of last summer.

This brings us nicely onto the To Do List 2024/25

The only thing we didn’t do was re-stain the benches ready for winter. So the To-Do List works and I have started jotting a few things down for 2025/26. Feel free to take a look and let me know your thoughts or indeed, anything that needs to be added.

We also litter-picked the southern end of the path. 4.6 km covered.

That’s 6,000 steps and a lot of bending and reaching…

We saw our first butterfly of the 2025 season as we walked back to the entrance.

A Brimstone. We also had a visit from a big furry red-tailed bumblebee. I have a feeling this year will be a good one for wildlife!

Next one is Friday on the Dunchurch trail.

Until then!

Paul

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We Rebuild Our Bridge

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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Seven wildlife superheroes turned out this morning. Reece, Marcus, Steve, Dave, Martin, Ian, and Paul. Today was all about the finishing touches to our new pond area.

First was a little bench to sit and view the pond.

It still looks horrendously muddy, but there is new growth of a native plant that is rampant.

Brooklime (Veronica beccabunga). When this bad boy starts, it just doesn’t stop. Soon the whole area will be lush green.

We have our waterfall and our exit as the stream meanders off to the River Avon.

A quick YouTube really just to let you hear the noise of the water.

If it works and the bench doesn’t get vandalised, we can replace it with something a bit better looking and a bit more substantial. I don’t want to be spending money until I know that we get a return, so I butchered an old pallet. Lots of kids play around here and there is a high chance that someone thinks it a good idea to give the bench a hoof…

Birds have been seen splashing about in the water and we have frogs.

How exciting!!

We broke for coffee and flapjack at half-time.

A much-needed sugar-fix ready for the next task.

We rebuilt our bridge. We had drainage issues so it needed changing.

The whole thing now flows with the rest of the path and nobody can fall off the side and get caught in the cavity around the drain. As it settles and moss grows around the drain, it should all start to blend in.

This week’s nightly revision has been all about bees. Apparently, there are many different types of our stripey saviours and most do not produce honey or exist in a colony within a hive, instead leading a solitary life and making a nest in little nooks and crannies. I put my thinking cap on and thought about how we could use some of the bigger bits of timber that we cut back last week.

I came up with this.

I foolishly thought that they would be vertical and just a load of holes drilled into the side of each length of timber. Oh how utterly wrong I was…

The holes need to be between three and four inches deep and between 6mm to 10mm in diameter. We need to attach them to the side of trees with the entrance facing south to get full sun, and then see what happens.

Apparently, the female bee will lay an egg in the depth of the hole, seal the chamber and then lay another egg in the next chamber, and so on. The bees hatch as larvae and eventually emerge from the nest, with the male bees waiting for the female bee to pop out, where she gets impregnated and the whole cycle starts again.

Isn’t nature so totally amazing!!

Next time, I will season the wood before using it. There is no way to get a clean hole drilled when it is so full of moisture. Every day is a learning day!!!

This is another exciting avenue that we have created. If you like bees, or like nature, come along and help. There is always plenty to do.

Martin went off and stained some more of our benches.

Don’t sit down or you will get a stripey bottom!!

I did a litter pick on Monday and Martin went over it again today. Pretty much half of the trail is covered.

Little and often is the way forward.

Lastly, Dave went on a hedge laying course and we agreed that we want to get away from the green tunnel effect that happens in the summer. The farmer cuts the hedges for most of the trail and we think that being able to look out over the countryside is better than a wall of green.

Next week we are staining the benches from the Cawston Bridleway bridge, southward.

Until then!

Paul

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The Bird Nesting Season Starts.

Posted on March 5, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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Five wildlife superheroes turned out today. Matt, Steve, Martin, Marcus, and Paul. It’s been an emotionally and physically exhausting week for me, so it was really good to just kinda get back to my happy place and regroup a little.

I keep banging on about mental well-being and how we provide a safe space, both within the workgroup, and also connecting with nature and just getting out into the countryside. I kid you not, it works.

We had a few tasks to tackle today. The first was a large tree coming down on the embankment and the top of the tree was pushing into the path.

I had this vision of someone walking along scrolling on their phone and getting poked in the head by one of the branches. So we gave it a gentle snip back, and then a bit more, and then some more.

The gentle pushback became quite brutal in the end. Boys will be boys!!

We made a superb habitat pile that will get full sun. It will drop down as it settles and be full of nooks and crannies for all sorts of wildlife.

The thicker bits of timber will be cut into 5-inch lengths and we will drill a load of holes ranging from 3mm to 10mm into them, and attach them to the south-facing side of trees. These will then become fantastic sites for different types of bees to lay eggs.

We might end up with our very own bee colony!

After the tree was despatched we broke for breakfast, or lunch, or brunch??

I had to be reminded to take a photo of the bacon after a couple of rashers had been served up. Yeah, we were hungry. The view here is pretty decent, so we enjoyed it.

Another annoying tree that had fallen across the path was quickly despatched with Ian’s saw.

We will be putting in a funding application in May for more of these saws. They go through branches like a hot knife through butter.

We also set about giving some of our benches a fresh coat of wood stain.

There are plenty more to do so it will take a month or so to get them all re-stained and looking fresh. The last thing that we want is to be offering manky seating and tables to our end users, who might want to use them for a rest or a picnic.

If I was having a picnic I would hope that it would look something like this…

Yes, one is allowed to dream now and again. The grim reality is that it would be a coffee from my flask and a bacon roll, probably.

It was nice to see the path starting to dry out, and loads of dappled sunlight, on the section from the underpass to Berrybanks.

We’re in a deep cutting here, so when this starts to dry, we kinda know that the transition from winter to spring is happening.

This is what we get when we clear back a line up the bank of the cutting, so shafts of sunlight hit the ground. I’m hoping that I remember this in September and we can do some coordinated thinning-out. When it greens up the cover will become a lot more dense.

Lastly, I was lucky enough to see a beautiful red sky from Mick’s sunset bench in the last week.

Mick would come down to this spot just to catch the sunset most evenings.

A good old boy who we all miss dearly.

That’s it for this week. Next week we are back at Berrybanks just doing a final tidy-up, and sticking a bench in, so people can sit and listen to the water as it flows into the drain and meanders its way to the River Avon.

Until then!

Paul

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Last Cutting Back Session

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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Today was very wet. So wet that we thought it best not to get the battery-powered tools out and cut back the last bit of scrub at our most southerly point. Instead, we litter-picked all the way to The Bear bridge.

It was a decent haul and it did at least stop raining towards the end. It was a good 4 km there and back. We dumped the bags at The Bear end and annoyingly spotted a few bits of litter that we had missed, on the way back to where our kit was. Next time we need to remember to take a spare bag for the return trip.

We admired our snowdrop clearing as we passed it.

When they have gone over we will fill in some more of the gaps from our secret supply. The term “in the green” is used when they are still active but not flowering and apparently, this is the best time to split clumps and move them around. Hopefully, we will get the carpet effect at some point soon.

My obsession with running water continues…

This is a collective effort but Reece and Ian have really driven the project forward, and today showed it coping really well.

There’s still work to do on the bridge drainage and we need to tidy up around the drain area. I have a small bench that I made out of an abandoned pallet, to put in, so people can sit and enjoy the sound of the water and hopefully, enjoy the greenery that will explode in a month or two.

That really was about it for today. A bit of a damp squib in terms of cutting back, but great conversations and stuff.

Over the next month or so we can busy ourselves with jobs like staining the benches and generally keeping it all tidy, before it suddenly goes mad and everything goes boom!!

Dunchurch Bridleway

Three wildlife superheroes turned out last Friday. Ian, Ruby and Paul. We swapped the bitter cold of last time, for the raging wind. It was the sort of wind that we had to put our heads down and really fight against.

But we got a good 100 metres nicely strimmed back all the way up to the third bench.

We have tractors going up and down at the moment because it’s a bridleway, and in the middle of farmland. We can just keep the path cut back and keep our little slither open and walkable.

There seems to be a muddy patch where our picnic bench is, so we opened up the side a bit. People now have the option of not having to walk through it.

This area will become a large glade later in the year so the muddy bit will dry out. Another job for September when the bird nesting season is over.

We also litter-picked up to the pair of benches where the Solstice Coffee Shop path runs off to the south.

Mostly just plastic and stuff from the building site that is the warehousing.

I got papped…

Definitely a Z-lister…

But the highlight of the morning was bacon rolls cooked by Ruby.

It was tough going because the gale-force wind seemed to be blowing in every direction, but she got there in the end and served up a cracking breakfast to go with our coffee.

The next one is in March, and being the first workday of the month means… more bacon!!

Until next time!

Paul

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Mad Rush Before The Bird Nesting Season Starts…

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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We feel like we are really up against it at the moment. Literally nine days before the bird nesting season starts, when we flip from cutting back, to just managing the path width and doing all the spring jobs like re-staining the benches and fixing anything that is broken.

The first job is to make sure our “estate” of 55 bird-nesting boxes are all secure and ready for the birds to do their thing.

Quite a few had worked loose and a few had come down and needed a rebuild. It’s all fun and games as we get ready for spring!!

I had promised sausages on the camping stove but the rain, and the amount of distance that we needed to cover, kinda put paid to that. It will happen though.

I’ve been madly trying to take out the height of the scrub so that we have bramble hedges.

It needs to be cut short and hedge-like with occasional trees along it.

I know the view ain’t great, but it’s better than feeling hemmed in. When it greens up it’s like being in a green tunnel.

What we kinda want is a hedgerow with individual trees that are allowed to mature and act as staging posts for wildlife to jump across from one to the other, and high roosts for owls, buzzards and hawks to look across the fields in their hunt for prey.

The scrub is mostly aged bramble that is never going to fruit up again. It needs to be cut right back and then cut on a rotational basis every three years, whilst the trees and shrubs that will form a more permanent hedge are allowed to flourish.

Andrew has made the Geocaching trail along the Dunchurch Bridleway. This will bring a lot of much needed footfall.

This will be such fun in the spring and summer. Thank you, Andrew.

Today eight wildlife superheroes braved the cold. Marcus, Reece, Dave, Ian, Steve, George, Martin, and Paul. We wanted to make our triangular bench set a bit of a suntrap so we set about creating openings to allow shafts of sunlight to hit the benches.

Whilst we had sunshine first thing today, it clouded over before the sun came round. I look forward to sitting here and basking in full sun in the next month or two with a flask of coffee and bacon cooking on the stove.

We also got rid of a few trees that had fallen and got snagged with upright ones.

The trees that are curving into the path will have to go at some point. Because the area behind them has not been kept clear and they have grown where the light is. Such a shame but this is what happens when woodland is left unmanaged.

We also made habitat piles for insects and small mammals with all the cuttings.

This is going to be so good for wildlife. Plenty of timber to burrow into or under and make a home.

We enjoyed coffee and biscuits on our break, and a good laugh was had.

It’s that bonding, and friendship, and stuff, that is so important for all of our mental wellbeing.

It’s becoming such an issue that someone has made a parody of it here…

Whilst it’s obviously a joke, there is some truth to it. If you feel that maybe you are lacking in male friendships, do something about it.

My obsession with flowing water seems to be following me around now. We stopped the flooding but a weird drain has started flowing onto the path.

Slightly annoying but hopefully it will stop as quickly as it started.

Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT to create a picture of the greenway.

If we look like this in the summer we will be very happy…

Lastly, we have a new tool!!

Tool Talk Wednesday

This beast allows us to reach across or up, and get the bits that we cannot normally clear.

It’s a bit unwieldy and works the arm and shoulder muscles very well, especially when fully extended. I had a free half-hour this afternoon so went back and lopped off some of the higher stuff.

That’s about it for this week.

Next one is on Friday at Dunchurch and then next week is our last session cutting back for this season.

Until then!

Paul

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