Race Against Time As Cutting-Back Season Ends.

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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Seven wildlife heroes rolled out today. Marcus, Reece, Ian, Steve, Martin, Dave, and Paul, and we felt that a stretch on the southern end of the path was just a little too tight.

There is that fine balance where we want the wildlife and nature to thrive, but we also want people to be able to use the path and connect with the natural surroundings to improve their outlook and general mental wellbeing, as well as the exercise that walking and cycling provides.

It was a gradual push out and lots of habitat piles created for insects and small mammals. It just makes it feel a bit more welcoming and a little less oppressive and kinda, on top of you. I would like to take the height out of the scrub so it’s about 5 feet, but we have run out of time. The bird nesting season starts in literally two weeks’ time. A job for September if we remember.

It’s getting people, the countryside, and nature meshing together. If the people part of it feels uncomfortable because they cannot see ahead or to the sides, then it’s not really working as it should.

We broke off for a much-needed caffeine kick and biscuits at half-time.

It’s a bit of a come-down from the bacon rolls of last week!! But it did the job and enjoyable banter was had by all.

I snuck off and did a litter-pick for just over 2 km of the path.

Little and often is the best way here. Hopefully, if people subconsciously think how litter-free it is, they might be less likely to discard their rubbish.

Something that warmed my heart was a den that I came across.

This is the sort of thing that I did as a kid, playing out in the countryside letting my imagination run wild. It also reinforces one of our three main pillars of what we do and why we do it.

A Path For Everyone.

We want as many people from all walks of life to be able to enjoy the path. This makes me feel that we are on the right track.

The other two pillars are:

A Wildlife Corridor.

A Safe Place For Mental Wellbeing.

That was about it for this week. I need to shin up my ladder and re-attach a few bird boxes that look a bit wobbly, but that might be a job for the weekend, other than that we are looking pretty fit and ready for the nesting season. I’m so looking forward to seeing it dry out a bit and see if what has been in my mind’s eye unfolds into reality over the spring and summer.

Dunchurch Bridleway

We (Ian, Steve and Paul) had a good session on this. The first task was to drain some of the standing water into the drainage channels or ditches, which I assume eventually work their way into rivers? The big river around here is the River Avon so I guess everything works its way to that.

Hopefully, it dries out and the ground gains some ability to absorb normal rainfall, rather than constantly puddling up.

We also knocked back about 200 metres of the path. We need it short so that when spring is here we are just strimming back new green shoots, rather than old and gnarly coarse grass that snags the strimmers and makes it really hard going.

We enjoyed coffee and biscuits at half-time on one of our benches. I wished that I had brought soup because it was bitterly cold.

But it was enough to warm us up and keep us going.

I seem to be developing an obsession with the sound of running water…

Our YouTube (I use YouTube because uploading videos to the blog requires me to “upgrade” to the next level, which costs even more in the monthly subscription!!)

It’s just nice to listen to the water doing its thing… I’m a Pisces so maybe something to do with that??

Or maybe I’m just a bit of a weirdo…

All-in-all, a good day and I like how we are improving this path and gradually getting it to our standard, which is wide enough for people to walk two abreast and plenty of benches for end-users to sit, have a conversation, picnic, contemplate life (which I have done an awful lot of over the last couple of weeks), or just connect with nature and enjoy the sound of the birds and views across the open countryside.

The next one is at the northerly part of Cawston just letting a bit of sunlight in to brighten it up and encourage wildflowers to pop up.

Until next time!

Paul

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This Week We Became Lumberjacks

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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Seven of us (Marcus, Reece, Ian, Martin, Steve, Matt, and Paul) turned out this sunny morning and swapped our wildlife hero cloaks for checked shirts.

We’ve had a few trees come down, and of course, there is never a clean fall. They get tangled up in other trees and have that look of “if so much as a butterfly lands on me, I’m gonna drop!” about them.

Crazy people still walk under them, so we have to roll up our sleeves and pretend to be lumberjacks. Which is great fun at the start but soon becomes incredibly hard work.

The good thing about there being so many of us is that if we each do five minutes on the saw, then that equates to 35 minutes of constant sawing.

We eventually made the dangling trees safe and pushed what timber we could into the margins to keep the path clear, and allow the cut wood to slowly become host to literally hundreds of thousands of insects, as it slowly rots down over the next ten years or so.

Is this the start of an assault course? When the roots rot off, we might be able to swing it around by 90 degrees. Today was not the day to try and shift it.

After all of that exercise, we broke off for a decent pick-me-up of coffee, bacon rolls, and good company.

It’s the first workday of the month, so we rolled out the portable stove, and got the bacon sizzling away as we set up camp at one of our triangles of benches, that are designed for people to sit at and have a relaxed conversation.

The bacon did brown up a bit more than in the photo, but I was too busy stuffing my face and slurping my coffee to bother about taking pictures.

We also tried to create shafts of sunlight down the bank.

It’s getting to the top of the cutting and knocking back anything that is going to block out the sunshine. It creates dappled pools of light on the opposite side of the path so wildflowers will grow and we just have a bit of variety.

We did a litter pick here and also on the westerly end of the Dunchurch Bridleway.

The Dunchurch Bridleway has a lot of litter blowing about from the building site next to it. Cawston not so much.

Our YouTube of the bridge.

Our Geocaching Trail on the Dunchurch bit has been taken over by Andrew so I look forward to seeing that restored back to a decent bit of fun for friends and families to enjoy.

We have completed our 8 circular routes starting at 1 km and finishing at 10 km, all from The Bear Pub, so please go in and enjoy a pint or bite to eat if you can.

All of these trails can be found by clicking on the AllTrails tab on the menu above.

It’s so good to get out and connect with nature.

Next week, we are at the Potford Dam end, and the week after we are at the most northerly end trying to let a lot of light in and get it a bit drier.

And that is about it as we trudged back up the steps and reconnected with the real world.

As the adventure ended for another week, we couldn’t help but admire the habitat pile made by the guys from Jaguar Landrover on their corporate volunteering day.

Friday is on the Dunchurch Bridleway back at the easterly end.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Until next time!

Paul

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Battling With The Floods

Posted on January 29, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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A bit of a tough one for me this week. I’ve had really bad news, that I don’t really want to go into on here. The good thing is that I’ve had the group to drag me out and stop me wallowing in my thoughts alone. It’s that mental health element of doing what we do.

Thanks guys.

If you’re feeling alone, or just need that human contact, do something about it. Please don’t struggle through life thinking that nobody cares about you.

Today was Martin’s birthday and we had a unicorn cake. It was very tasty indeed.

Stupidly I didn’t attach the lid to the flask properly and about half of the coffee leaked out all over my car on the way to the workday. Good job I like the aroma. So it felt like half measures, but there was just enough.

Happy Birthday, Martin!

No actual unicorns were harmed in the making of this blog.

The storm came and went and somehow the rainwater found its way back down the path. Seven of us (Reece, Steve, Martin, Dave, Marcus, Ian, and Paul) turned out to try to do a Mosses and get the water to do what we wanted.

We increased the size of the dam and the bottom holding pond, and pushed the path wider so that there is a higher area to walk on when it does flood. Reece got the flow working a lot better from the top pond.

We’re going to put a little bench here so people can sit and enjoy the sound of the flowing water and enjoy the pond when it all greens up.

We have Brooklime already sprouting in the muddy banks.

This is pretty rampant so should cover the mud really quickly in the spring.

Our YouTube of the pond.

It all looks like a forlorn mess at the moment but I can see it looking good in the spring and summer.

I also litter-picked up and down the northern end.

Dunchurch Bridleway

We finally got the new benches in, set at 90 degrees to each other to encourage conversations, but not be too intense, like they would be if parallel.

They work really well.

We also litter-picked the area.

It just keeps it pleasant and nice to walk and cycle along the path.

I’ve updated two more circular routes on AllTrails.

Just one more to go!!

That’s it for this week.

Until next time!

Paul

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Hawthorn Trail

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

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Seven wildlife warriors made it today. Matt, Reece, Dave, Steve, Ian, Martin, and Paul, and we pushed on with our alternative path that runs for about 220 metres between two benches.

Next to the path on the easterly side is a huge swathe of grassland that is encouraged to grow as a wildflower meadow every summer. We want to create windows in the scrappy edges of our trail so people can enjoy views of the wildflowers and bring a load of sunlight onto our path.

We called it the Hawthorn Trail because most of the trees along it are hawthorn, so we will get a lot of early white blossom in spring.

But today was not for admiring the blossom or greenery. We set about opening up the edge.

It started out quite misty and foggy but soon cleared. As you can see, there are houses in the background. On our eastern side is a housing development and to our western side is the countryside.

Here is our YouTube of the path.

What I love about winter is that we can see the bare bones of everything. We can shape the path and do stuff while thinking about how it might look when it all greens up.

I think we might need to signpost this path so more people use it. For me, it’s a bit of an adventure, a little bit secret and somewhere that I can go and lose myself safe in the knowledge that I will not be interrupted. But it needs the footfall to wear the path flat. Some of it is at a slight slope.

Matt summed it up perfectly today. Kids can go down there and let their imaginations run wild, whilst parents can amble along the top path and meet them as they pop out at the other end.

We broke for our pick-me-up juice and had to settle for rather run-of-the-mill custard cream biscuits.

But they were good to share and gave us the energy to carry on.

We also made habitat piles with the wood that we were cutting back.

It all helps nature to find a home and be happy.

We have Snowdrops starting to push up so that gives us a good feeling that warmer weather is on the way.

However, between now and spring we have a problem. Or maybe we should call it a test.

There is this thing called a “weather bomb” that hits the UK on Friday.

Lots and lots of rain. This is going to test our plumbing at Berrybanks to the max!!

You can see how dry it has become now that the water goes where it is supposed to.

Please let us not return to the huge lake that stops so many people using the path!!

There is a mixture of excitement and worry coursing through my veins at the moment!!

On Friday we are putting in a couple of really decent benches along the Dunchurch part if the weather is not too bad.

I will share our exploits next week.

Until then!

Paul

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Today We Became Civil Engineers

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

We hung up our wildlife warrior capes and donned our hard hats whilst putting our collective minds together to solve our continual flooding issue.

Reece, Ian, Matt, Martin, Dave, and Paul turned out with our mattocks and shovels and boy-o-boy did we do some digging!!

The underground culvert is blocked and the rain water is taking the easiest route, which is down the path for about 700 metres.

This wouldn’t be a problem and makes quite a nice feature, however, because we are in deep cutting the ground around it stays soaking wet, as we can see.

So we set about increasing the flow rate under our bridge to the drain and re-routed the overflow to fill the lower balancing pond.

We widened the bridge to make it safer for users. One of our key aims is to make the path usable for as many different people as possible, so the bridge needs to be suitable for mobility scooters and pushchairs.

It all looks like a soggy mess at the moment but in a few week’s time, everything will dry out and start to settle.

We’re going to leave this area for a fortnight so the water can find its natural level and then come back and build up the bank on the left and move the island in the middle. We need there to be enough space for the water to rise and fall without breaking the bank. We have a waterfall at one end, a pool, and the water flowing out of the other end as it makes its way along the brook to the river Avon. I imagine that this will be really good for wildlife.

When the area settles down we should see aquatic plants popping up.

There used to be a lot of Brooklime (Veronica beccabunga) in this area so I look forward to seeing it again. I think a little bench would work here so people can sit and watch the waterfall and just enjoy the sound of flowing water.

Fingers crossed that this fixes this ongoing issue.

At half-time, we had a French twist with biscuits and lashings of hot coffee.

I had one of my oh là là moments in the supermarket and simply couldn’t resist. They are pretty tasty so I’m glad I did.

Here is our YouTube of the area which shows how soggy it is.

Now that the water is under control it will get better.

We also litter-picked up and down the path to keep it a pleasant place to be.

And some kind person pushed a Wickes gift card through my letterbox.

Thank you very much!!

Dunchurch Bridleway

We cut back the last 600 metres of this last Friday and it was really pleasing to see so many people using the path from Cawston to Dunchurch.

It was bitingly cold so I brought soup. I kid you not, it was very very welcome. We also litter-picked this part of the path.

It’s a nice path to walk or cycle and we are slowly getting the width that we like.

Lastly, I have created a 5-mile circular trail that the easterly end of the bridleway connects to. It takes people around the edge of the village but allows them to drop in and see the village centre if they so wish.

Link here: https://www.alltrails.com/en-gb/explore/map/dunchurch-circular-452bf20

It’s worth it, as you will see from the photos.

This is where I live!! A quintessentially English village. I love it!!

Until next week!

Paul

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We Need Dry Days

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

And looking at the weather forecast, it looks like that is what we are going to get next week, and warmer temperatures too.

Here is a nice little reminder to come and help.

Only four of us made it today. Reece, Steve, Martin and Paul. But we finally pushed back the narrow bit of Berrybanks and Reece kinda worked out a plan for the constant flooding.

It felt like we had it under control after last week but really heavy rain and snow soon had us on the back foot, again (photos a mixture of mine and Steve’s).

Quite challenging when everything that we do here comes to nothing. Next week we are trying something different.

We released a few of the trees and cut back the vegetation to allow sunlight in and hopefully, a bit of wind to help dry the ground out.

This is the width that we like, and the more that we get behind the trees, the better we feel that it looks.

It’s a bit of a soggy mess at the moment but it will dry out quickly.

It’s always nice to spot a log pile that we made years ago.

We can only imagine what insects and small mammals have made their homes here.

We got the camping stove out and had bacon rolls.

Just the thing on a morning when it’s -1 degree Celsius and thankfully washed down with plenty of hot coffee. We soon warmed up after this little feast.

We are back here next week and hopefully back up to normal numbers because we need to dig a trench to the right of the holding pond, and dam up the leaky trench on the left of it, so mattocks, spades and manpower are needed.

A quick YouTube of the cutting leading to the underpass.

On Friday we’re on the Dunchurch Bridleway at the western end. We were going to put in a set of benches but frozen ground says no.

And to finish, Matt sent these rather wonderful photos of a greenway in Washington that follows an old railway line. At 45 miles long, it’s a bit bigger than ours!!

The link is here and makes for interesting reading.

If you want to join in please feel free to pop along. We are not cliquey or experts at anything, but we do solve problems with our collective input and have a bit of a laugh along the way.

Until next time!

Paul

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A Wet Start To 2025

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

It was a bit of a soggy one today, both with the rain, and the huge amount of standing water underfoot.

But five of us turned out (Ian, Dave, Tim, Steve, and Paul) despite the rotten weather.

We desperately need to cut the vegetation right back and clear the slightly higher ground. The wider it is the more light gets in and it will dry out. However, our first priority was to fix our broken picnic bench.

I think this was basic wear-and-tear and an awful design, rather than any naughty squirrel damage.

We flipped it over and tried to identify the weak points.

It’s now pretty solid and ready for a decently dry day so we can stain it all the same colour and hopefully get a few more years service out of it.

We broke for coffee but didn’t go for bacon rolls. It was just too wet to start trying to cook stuff on the camping stove, so we will see how the weather looks next week.

After our break we tried to make head or tail of the flooding. There is a blockage somewhere so we are trying to get the water to pool into a holding area and slowly drain away via some new piping that we put in early last year.

Dealing with this is like trying to herd cats. The water will not go where we want it to go. But we started to see it drain away towards the end of the session. We got a pretty good idea of what we need to do so we are back here next week to see what magic we can conjure up.

I did a litter pick at some point over the Chrimbo Limbo period and found a dumped shopping cart from the local shop!!

I reported it so hopefully it will get collected and put back into service.

I also found some wood that was used as packing and would’ve been thrown away.

I made a pair of benches that we are going to place opposite each other on the Dunchurch Bridleway. Hopefully, this will encourage people to sit facing each other and chat. It’s all good for mental wellbeing.

Dave very kindly bought us 10 “buy-me-a-coffee” coffees (link on the sidebar) so I added a small amount to it and we now have more power.

That’s 60 minutes extra strimming time. Thank you so much, Dave.

Lastly, I have added a new tab on the menu bar.

This is a series of circular walks starting and finishing at The Bear Pub. The first one is just 1.1 km and each trail gets longer and longer. I still have a few to do to complete the set, but it’s getting there.

Dunchurch Bridleway

We did a bit of work on this just before Christmas with the priority being to get the 2 km loop to the Solstice Coffee Shop clear, and push on westwards along the actual bridleway.

We added a bit of a French flavour to our break with some very tasty biscuits.

It was very nice to see a few people using the path as we worked.

The next one on here will be Friday 10th Jan putting in the pair of benches.

Next one on the Cawston bit will be next Wednesday back at Berrybanks.

Until then!

Paul

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Merry Christmas

Posted on December 18, 2024 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Eight wildlife warriors (Reece, Marcus, Steve, Martin, Ian, Dave, Matt, and Paul) turned out today for our last workday before Christmas and the New Year.

What a wonderful year we have had. We have seen the team get bigger, the path get wider, and we have overcome our many challenges with all of our collective input to solve problems.

One of the highlights for me, and there are many, is the camaraderie and friendship that we have all developed.

Thank you to the many businesses and individuals who have supported us over the last year and indeed, the last fifteen years. It’s been a real pleasure to see the trust and commitment that everyone has had in us to deliver a real asset to the local community.

We finished today with lunch at The Bear, which I can highly recommend, and I think we can all look forward to a bit of a rest before we start again in 2025.

And lastly, thank you to all the people who tune in to the blog every Wednesday and read my ramblings of our great adventure.

Until next time!

Paul

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Winding Down For Christmas

Posted on December 11, 2024 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Six wildlife heroes turned out today (Reece, Marcus, Steve, Matt, Martin and Paul) and we cracked on with pushing out the scallop pockets and creating windows on the other side of the path to let shafts of sunlight into the pockets.

We trimmed back all the way to the edge and cut out an opening, and then made a habitat pile with all the cuttings. The more varied the path is, hopefully, the more wildlife will find it, and it will also be an interesting place to walk or cycle.

There is a huge amount of new vegetation coming up in the new pockets so it’s going to be fantastic to see what we get in the spring. The scallop pockets at the southern most bit of the path have yet to wake up, so we dragged the rake over the ground to try to disturb it a bit.

The more the ground is disturbed the better the chance that seeds decide to germinate.

We also did some work on the edges. We’re trying to keep the scrub about 1 metre high so people can enjoy the views and not feel quite so enclosed.

It all looks a bit bleak at the moment, but it’s a good time to get everything ready for spring next year.

We enjoyed Christmas mince pies with our coffee at the break.

The path looking up and down has a pretty good feel about it.

And our brook has gone back to normal.

No more rivers of chocolate sauce!

Our YouTube of a bit of today.

It just gives people a taste of what it looks like.

The next one is this Friday on the Dunchurch Bridleway, and then the last one before Christmas and the New Year will be next Wednesday, with the following Wednesday being Christmas Day.

Yes, the idea did cross my mind of the portable stove and a saucepan on Christmas Day…

But I think I would find said saucepan wrapped around my head…

Only joking of course. I’m really looking forward to having a bit of a break over Christmas and the New Year, and then we can tackle the Hawthorn Trail and the flooding at Berrybanks in the last two months of the cutting-back season.

Until next time!

Paul

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Depleated Squad

Posted on December 4, 2024 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

At kick-off, we realised that we had a lot of injuries to the team, and other team members on international duties so there were literally just three of us.

However, we pushed on as best we could. The first thing that we came across was the brook at our Brook View Bench.

It has turned a lovely chocolatey brown. If you’re a chocolate lover then this is what Willy Wonka dreams are made of.

We then noticed a load of wildflowers coming up in a lot of the pockets.

Bedstraws and creeping buttercup, amongst other things, according to the ID thing on my phone. Creating these pockets really is against the run of play. If it was just left unmanaged then it would be dense scrub and nothing else.

At half-time, we enjoyed a cuppa and some stem ginger cookies from Waitrose.

Despite us being down on numbers they were polished off pretty quickly.

In the second-half we tried to open up down the sides and create a sunlight shot right into the back of the scallop nets.

We need to get up the bank and really open up the last line of defence. It’s just poking through to create a clear shot on goal into the scallop.

We also made the willow trees look a bit more tree-like and a lot less bush-like.

We made a decent defensive line with the cuttings. This will be superb for wildlife.

We swept out from our half and pushed forward.

Plenty of open spaces created up the field.

I’ve managed to create another loop for the couch-2-10k thing that I’m putting together.

This one is about 5k and the next three take the route all the way to 10k. If you want to start on the first circular trail and build up, it’s all there for you, and a decent pub welcome awaits at the end.

Luckily we had a substitution this week and we were happy to see that someone had tried to build a den.

We also litter-picked to keep it looking good.

It wasn’t long before the final whistle blew and it was time to head back. We could’ve done with a bit of Fergie Time but we do it all again next week.

Dunchurch Bridleway

We started where Solstice Coffee Shop is and worked our way up the field.

It’s a decent 2k circular trek with a good coffee stop halfway around.

Loads of people are loving this in the village and because we make our paths wide enough for people to walk together two-abreast, rather than Indian-style single-file, it encourages conversation and stuff.

That’s it for this week!

Paul

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