Monday 26 October 2009

Snowdonia Marathon

The raceI missed this one - thanks to Daniel for words and pictures

Nine of us travelled to Wales this weekend to spend Saturday marshalling at the 27th Snowdonia Marathon. The weekend has been a fixture in the MNTV calendar since the 1990's and for some of the group putting the clocks back one hour and spending Saturday night at the Hendre Isaf basecamp go hand in hand!

Feed stationTim, Karin, Arthur, Mick, Pip, Hazel and Adrian manned the Bryn Gwynant (8 miles) and Llyn Dinas (10.5 miles) feedstations between them and handed out drinks, sponges and words of encouragement to the passing runners. Thanks for all your efforts guys! Successful staging of the race relies on a host of volunteers and you did a great job.

The runners - Daniel and PatrickDaniel and Patrick completed the pact they made last year and both ran the race this time, clocking respectable times and battling through some foul weather on the higher ground. Their hopes of reviving at the finish with mugs of sweet tea were dashed by a power failure at the local sub-station that plunged the Community Centre into darkness!
Hearty Supper
We all met up back at the basecamp from 6pm and after hot showers were soon tucking into a hearty supper of spaghetti Bolognese, garlic bread and pineapple-upside-down cake with custard. Meanwhile the drying room worked overtime drying our cagoules, overtrousers, boots/trainers and assorted clothing. With all the exertions of the day we were glad of the extra hour in bed.

The weather cleared overnight and we spent sunday morning at Bodnant Gardens, using our 50-hour and/or membership cards to get free entry. The gardens have recently featured in the BBC Two series "A Garden in Snowdonia" and we enjoyed the beautiful autumn colours and saw the changes made by the recent £3m improvements.

Sunday 18 October 2009

Thurstaston Common

9 Volunteers and 2 members of staff turned out and spent the day, cutting birch and chipping to maintain the heathland habitat in areas than cannot be practically grazed.

Thurstaston common is on the Wirral and for our group the trip involves meeting up in Styal and car sharing for the 100 mile round trip. This may explain why 7 of the volunteers were from the Chester group.

They appeared to enjoy the victoria sponge I took. The weather was grey but mostly dry.

Saturday 17 October 2009

Victoria Baths


A small group of our volunteers turned out on saturday to help a different charity.

By all reports they enjoyed their day working behind the scenes.

Sunday 11 October 2009

Dungham Massey 11/10/9

Nine volunteers turned out - no photos here yet as I forgot my camera...

We worked with Andrew, the warden, at the side of the recently extended carpark clearing birch, rhody, brambles and hymillayan balsam, partly to tidy up the area, and partly to simplify the elimination of the Balsam in the longer term.

He had a fire going when we arrived and we burnt everything we cut. It rained a litle in the morning, but brightened up and the sun shone in the afternoon. Sue provided rather nice lemon cakes at coffee time. A good workday all round:-)

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Stalybridge station pub night, Tuesday 6 Octiober 2009

Tuesday night in the Buffet Bar proved a big hit with those who braved the awful weather. There was some unexpected additional entertainment as we had to share the the cosy little bar with the ghost story telling group, the local quiz team, and the Stalybridge Bikers Club. It's a bit of a one off this place. We also gave the black peas a try to soak up some of the great real ale we sampled, and were presented with free crumpets later on in the evening. A quirky fun evening! Hope to introduce more of you to this unique place in the future.

Sunday 4 October 2009

Shugborough 4 Oct 09

I took a weekend off.... thanks to Daniel for words and picture.

MNTV had a joint workday today with Wolverhampton NTV at Shugborough near Stafford. The 16 of us did two jobs for Joe, the head gardener. The larger group spent the day cutting down elder saplings in the old pheasants enclosure and burning them on a big bonfire, while the smaller group worked in the gardens proper, trimming back a tall holly hedge. We all met up for lunch and swapped news about the two groups, demolished Daniel's lemon drizzle cake and heard all about the Staffordshire Hoard (the Anglo Saxon gold & jewellery that was found by a metal detective in July). Liz from WNTV had queued patiently for 3.5 hours last week to see it in Birmingham Art Gallery! We didn't meet Earl Thomas this time. He has recently got engaged to Lady Henrietta Conyngham so perhaps was away planning their wedding